[dom2]

Yeah I'm super interested in that idea as well. I wonder if there are already some initiatives in the US doing stuff like it? Would it be as simple as setting up a server in someone's house and then splitting the cost of electricity and internet? Would a multiuser setup like that work under a personal internet line, or would most ISPs try to shut it down?

[vitaflo]

We used to do this in the late 90's (when there were less hosting options in general). A bunch of us at work wanted to run our own sites and experiments online, so we pooled our money and built a server that sat at one of our houses. At first we just got a static IP for the server, but eventually as more people at work joined, the guy who had the server in his basement got a T1 line installed.

We all just split the cost of internet and server upgrades, etc, which may have come out to like $40 a year or something on average. We probably did this for a decade or so until the hardware got too old and there wasn't as much interest in maintaining it all.

While I just have a VPS now, I do miss that old server and all of us working on it, and literally being able to do whatever we wanted with it. All it takes is a few buddies to get together and try it out. Experiment and see what happens, let it grow organically.