this post was submitted on 29 May 2025
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ISPs seem designed to funnel people to capitalist cloud services (slrpnk.net)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by ellie@slrpnk.net to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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(Sorry if this is too off-topic:) ISPs seem designed to funnel people to capitalist cloud services, or at least I feel like that. And it endlessly frustrates me.

The reason is even though IPv6 addresses are widely available (unlike IPv4), most ISPs won't allow consumers to request a static rather than a dynamic IPv6 prefix along with a couple of IPv6 reverse DNS entries.

Instead, this functionality is gatekept behind expensive premium or even business contracts, in many cases even requiring legal paperwork proving you have a registered business, so that the common user is completely unable to self-host e.g. a fully functional IPv6-only mail server with reverse DNS, even if they wanted to.

The common workaround is to suck up to the cloud, and rent a VPS, or some other foreign controlled machine that can be easily intercepted and messed with, and where the service can be surveilled better by big money.

I'm posting this since I hope more people will realize that this is going on, and both complain to their ISPs, but most notably to regulatory bodies and to generally spread the word. If we want true digital autonomy to be more common, I feel like this needs to be fixed for consumer landline contracts.

Or did I miss something that makes this make sense outside of a big money capitalist angle?

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[–] Fuzzypyro@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

If you have control over at least the root of your network you can totally get away with hosting in a dynamic pub ip. You just need to set up dynamicdns. There are other ways of handling this specific issue too. You can always go to a colocation and set up a server there if you want. You could also create your own reverse proxy tunnel in a place that is public then forward it. There are lots of work arounds really. Yeah, it sucks that American ISPs generally don’t support ipv6 but there are totally ways to work around it all.

What really gets me up in arms is when they advertise gigabit connections or 500mb speeds only to limit upload to 20mb/s. That is where they are actively inhibiting self hosting communities.

[–] ellie@slrpnk.net 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Even in an ideal DNS setup, you're probably going to have downtimes whenever your dynamic IP changes. If only because some ISPs even force-disconnect you after a while to change your address.

[–] Fuzzypyro@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I mean I’ll be real. Sure in some circumstances that could be an annoyance for 15 seconds for some software that might rely on a session whenever your ip changes like once a month if that. A rotating ip is probably one of the easiest things to work around amongst the plethora of challenges that ISPs present for those who want to self host.

I mean just take a look at what is involved if you are in a situation where cg-nat is implemented. You legitimately have no control over the root of your network at that point. I have that issue in particular with what is essentially a mobile hotspot as my failover for when my fiber fails. That being said I had to architect it in a way that took that took cg-nat into consideration. If I hadn’t then when fiber fails it would take down my services as a whole anyway.

My point is that those challenges have workarounds, you can solve those issues relatively easily and they even present a level of security. Where it is actively malicious is with restrictions to capacity such as upload limits in which they to a degree lie about their speeds and capacity. The terms of service stuff is just flat out awful too.

[–] ellie@slrpnk.net 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Some ISPs require changes ever 24 hours and will disconnect you if needed. Also, if you set DNS to cache such a short amount of time that you can react to that in 5 minutes, you will incur way more DNS traffic which can become a problem when your site is busier. Also, even if your DNS TTL is set to a super short value, a web search suggests to me in practice there will likely be downstream clients and networks that ignore it and won't really update in such a short time frame.

[–] Fuzzypyro@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

What ISP are you referring to? I have genuinely never heard of an isp that takes 24 hours to rotate your IP. Also utilizing dynamicdns is not going to incur more dns traffic? Dynamic DNS updates your dns provider from a system on your local network that your pub ip has changed then your provider will start sending traffic to the new ip. Propagation used to take a while but I haven’t experienced propagation wait times of over 10 minutes in years. This all being said dynamic DNS isn’t exactly the most elegant solution. It is just one of the simplest that I mentioned. There are significantly better options overall that completely take the requirement of a static pubip completely out of the equation and can be built using all free open source tools relatively easily.

[–] ellie@slrpnk.net 1 points 4 days ago

It causes way more traffic for the DNS server to use a shorter TTL, so yes, it does incur more DNS traffic. In Germany some providers will disconnect you regularly if you stay connected for too long.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Use hostnames and dynamic prefixes or addresses don't really matter. Haven't had an issue in years and my last isp changed prefixes multiple times a week. I mean technically it would not be available for five minutes when IP changes but never noticed.

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[–] muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee 0 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Starlink gives me an ipv6 its not static as such but a dynamic DNS can solve that issue. My ISP issue is that my mobile provider doesn't give me an ipv6 at all so I can't route to my home server without a gateway to proxy.

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[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

IPv6 costs money to implement so it doesn't happen without good reason.

For ISPs you need many options so that one company can't take all the business. In my area competition is steep so fiber is cheap. In rural areas I'm personally interested in community or small ISPs. Surely some people could get together and make something better.

[–] desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

rural ISPs still need a connection to the greater internet, what options are there when the closest non-shitty option is hundreds of miles away?

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 week ago

Community run ISPs

Get some people together and start an ISP

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