2026-05-11

# Run SaaS on user-controlled servers

Disclaimer
 - **Thinking aloud. May not endorse after more thought.**
 - See also: [Moxie Marlinspike's post](https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html) on why "users don't want to run their own servers, and never will."
 - See also: [Minimise lines of code to avoid being controlled, not to increase maintainability](./minimise_lines_of_code_to_avoid_being_controlled_not_to_increase_maintainability.md)
 - See also: [Why I love open source](./why_I_love_open_source.md)

Main
 - Has someone experimented with the following model: User rents a cloud server from hetzner/aws/etc, user issues an ssh key, user provides the key to the software provider, and the software provider then manages the server from there onwards. Only if there is a major issue, and the user is a power user (knows to operate a terminal, can copy-paste code from AI), then the user can take back control of the server and do what they wish.
 - The user is basically guaranteed that they can get a disk snapshot anytime and recover their data (albeit with a lot of work), and they are basically guaranteed they can shut down the service anytime.
 - This seems like a marginal improvement for user freedom as compared to the current model which is that the SaaS provider hosts it on their servers not yours.
 - Examples: A startup could let non-technical users run self-hosted email this way, as opposed to using gmail. Notion (or a competitor) could let non-technical users host their own notes this way, instead of using Notion as it currently is.