About Ronald
I started sharing my knowledge in 2020. At that time, it was about 3DVista that you could use to create 360-degree virtual tours. A program that was a one-time purchase and allowed you to self host the results on your own server.
Because I started sharing my knowledge, I was soon seen as the expert in this program. And with this I have had quite a few successes. See the logos of some of the companies I worked for on my homepage. My train of thought was often: I receive the money from big companies, so that I have time left over to continue to share knowledge with the great mass of people.
I wanted to become more and more effective online. In the sense of communicating effectively, really connecting people online. Online there is very often a skewed balance between people asking questions and people answering questions. And over time, I created several online communities, both paid and free communities to experiment finding that sweet spot to balance out giving and taking.
I have also started to delve more into “no-code” tools. Programs that are easy for individuals to use, but usually require a subscription. A subscription that is paid monthly or annually.
And while there is nothing wrong with paying a subscription in itself, such a subscription puts the creator of the no-code tool in a certain position of power which I think is usually unhealthy.
Because I started sharing my knowledge, I was soon seen as the expert in this program. And with this I have had quite a few successes. See the logos of some of the companies I worked for on my homepage. My train of thought was often: I receive the money from big companies, so that I have time left over to continue to share knowledge with the great mass of people.
I wanted to become more and more effective online. In the sense of communicating effectively, really connecting people online. Online there is very often a skewed balance between people asking questions and people answering questions. And over time, I created several online communities, both paid and free communities to experiment finding that sweet spot to balance out giving and taking.
I have also started to delve more into “no-code” tools. Programs that are easy for individuals to use, but usually require a subscription. A subscription that is paid monthly or annually.
And while there is nothing wrong with paying a subscription in itself, such a subscription puts the creator of the no-code tool in a certain position of power which I think is usually unhealthy.
- The price can be increased at any time (webflow)
- The privacy policy or terms and conditions can be changed at any time. Such as allowing the creations of customers to be used to train the company's own AI. (Adobe)
- Features can suddenly disappear or be moved to another price range
- Data about me as a customer of a no-code tool may be shared with 3rd parties (Matterport stealing customers)
- Updates are usually forced
- Export functionalities are usually minimal to switch to another party (Webflow)
- A respected company purchased by investors who are not that respectfull (Integromat > Make)
- By giving your creditcard details and agreeing to terms, a company can charge you $104,500 for being DDOS attacked (Netlify) or $1,300 (AWS)
Not agreeing means deleting your account. And if you have based your business on this, it is not so easy. So people who are subscribed are forced to accept. Such as what happened with Adobe customers in 2024 (video Louis Rossman).
My biggest frustration in this is that companies are now using customer data to improve their own AI system and where a large mass of people have no idea that they are giving away their creative power. And are actually digging their own graves.
As such, I have no immediate problem with AI, as long as that AI can run locally on one's own computer and it serves the individual. Not the AI company itself learning from your inputs such as the famous chat gpt.
There are some more reasons, but long story short: if I can host the software on my own server, I take the power back to myself. I decide if I accept updates or not. And if I don't, then I can keep running an old version, not break my business.
For a long time, self-hosting was really something for stereotypical nerds. But some time ago I found ways to host my own, open source software relatively easily.
There are certainly still a lot of things for me to learn when it comes to self-hosting, such as making proper backups and being able to restore those.
There are lots of open source alternatives to popular online tools. It's just that people are not really familiar with these. And offering an open source program is a lot more challenging than something that is proprietary. To make a living from it, you do need some sort of a healthy business model.
A lot of open source companies offer a cloud version. Usually for people that do not really want to get into self-hosting or are about to get into this. If you just quickly want to figure out if it's a fit for you. You might think you gain the same type of issues as with the companies above, but I say that the chances to be mistreated are much much lower with open source companies. And that is because the creators of open source companies usually tent to have a much brigther view on the world. They start giving value first. Proprietary companies are dependent of open source companies, even though most people are not aware of that. AWS is based on Linux (linuxfoundation).
My biggest frustration in this is that companies are now using customer data to improve their own AI system and where a large mass of people have no idea that they are giving away their creative power. And are actually digging their own graves.
As such, I have no immediate problem with AI, as long as that AI can run locally on one's own computer and it serves the individual. Not the AI company itself learning from your inputs such as the famous chat gpt.
There are some more reasons, but long story short: if I can host the software on my own server, I take the power back to myself. I decide if I accept updates or not. And if I don't, then I can keep running an old version, not break my business.
For a long time, self-hosting was really something for stereotypical nerds. But some time ago I found ways to host my own, open source software relatively easily.
There are certainly still a lot of things for me to learn when it comes to self-hosting, such as making proper backups and being able to restore those.
There are lots of open source alternatives to popular online tools. It's just that people are not really familiar with these. And offering an open source program is a lot more challenging than something that is proprietary. To make a living from it, you do need some sort of a healthy business model.
A lot of open source companies offer a cloud version. Usually for people that do not really want to get into self-hosting or are about to get into this. If you just quickly want to figure out if it's a fit for you. You might think you gain the same type of issues as with the companies above, but I say that the chances to be mistreated are much much lower with open source companies. And that is because the creators of open source companies usually tent to have a much brigther view on the world. They start giving value first. Proprietary companies are dependent of open source companies, even though most people are not aware of that. AWS is based on Linux (linuxfoundation).