Proton would solve a lot of my problems
Preamble
I mentioned previously that I've been looking into replacing Google Docs for my partner, and that the work of setting it up self-hosted in a way that allows collaboration with arbitrary-but-trusted people means I need a fairly robust networking solution.
Specifically, making some aspects of my homelab available to outsiders while protecting the rest, and potentially being able to limit access on a case-by-case basis, and having it all available to local users so I don't need to worry about auth when I'm checking on my services sitting 5 metres away.
I've tinkered a bit with Outline, a Notion-like with many built-in Auth providers including Discord, the platform she uses to talk to the people she'd be collaborating with - seems natural, though she'd have to migrate from a word processor to a markdown writer. It has Headings, Folders, and Comments which are her main requirements though, so it'd probably do the job.
I also learned about OnlyOffice, which integrates with NextCloud and seeks to specifically replace Docs/Office directly - unfortunately that also means trying to compete with them on AI bullshit - all of their marketing copy seems to eventually find its way to some kind of GPT integration - I'm sure it's not required, but it doesn't encourage me to get on board when AI scraping and misuse is a big part of why we don't want to use the incumbents.
Proton
Talking to a friend about the setup, and getting sidetracked to the topic of VPNs, I ended up on Proton's website and learned that they do more than just email and VPNs these days. They have a whole suite of privacy-focused services that would cost me not much more than my current VPN, including a Docs/Drive replacement that meets all of our needs.
I've seen previously that Proton and PIA are kind of "best-in-class" VPN providers but have had no problems with my current VPN and didn't want the headache of setting up a new one, but this is a lot more compelling.
That said, they also have their own AI Chat Bot and writing assistant and, while I believe them when they say they're committed to privacy, this isn't the kind of service I'm looking to use for a year or two - this is a potentially decades-long relationship. There are so many ways a policy like that can shift and evolve to technically meet the initial promises while still moving into areas I don't like.
Plus, there's the basic issue of how an AI like that comes to be - sure, they promise not to scrape my emails, but they trained the model on someone's texts and while they talk a big game about Scribe being an Open Source tool built on Open Source models, the page doesn't link to any of the sources. Searching for it just leads to news articles about how cool they are. It may be out there but I can only find what I'm equipped to find, and this doesn't encourage me either.
A Crossroads
Ultimately, I find myself at a crossroads.
On the one hand, I have the ambition to extricate myself and my home from the obsessive influence of Platforms. That even a poorly implemented solution I administrate is preferable to a polished service that some corporate entity controls. That learning to solve these problems gives me the tools to solve other problems and avoid handing over my data to bad actors and be manipulated into serving their financial interests.
On the other hand I could solve all of this by trusting just one corporate entity that seems better than the others. One that pinky-swears not to screw me over. My monthly costs will remain basically the same, but I'll have access to much more comprehensive services than I did previously, and they won't go down because I decided to tinker with my docker containers. My partner won't be reliant on my tech support to collaborate with her friends.
I don't know what I'm going to do just yet, but both options feel like a compromise.