I think I'm going to counter your argument by saying you should write your own web application for keeping notes because that's far simpler and quicker if you've already built it.
In my eyes there's a large number of ways to run applications, some of which are easier (containers) and some of which are harder or more error prone in the long term (manual installation of DBs, configuration files etc.).
A telltale sign of the person perhaps thinking of the second approach is the fact that they suggest that configuring Nextcloud would take a weekend, whereas with containers (and sane defaults/example configurations that can be run as code against your cluster vs a long document of steps to take) it becomes more easy.
Additionally, some software out there takes long time to configure regardless, due to its complexity. Nextcloud is not one of those pieces of software, so it's probably helpful to point that out. Not knowing that or perhaps having a different opinion is fine. Claiming that all software is cumbersome to setup and would take a weekend is false (from my perspective).
> I think I'm going to counter your argument by saying you should write your own web application for keeping notes because that's far simpler and quicker if you've already built it.
As stated before, different things work for different people. I wouldn't write apps for such narrow purposes because general solutions for file storage etc. work for me, whereas someone else might benefit greatly from the learning experience and the hassle free hosting of PaaS like Heroku (if they can afford it), whereas someone else might just sign up for a web app that someone else has developed, versus someone who'd just write their stuff down on a USB memory stick, or even store a file in their file system with no backups.
Of course, it's not just a matter of personal preferences, but also familiarity. I can tell someone that setting up a cloud service is a good option because it's almost effortless for me to do so, yet it won't be so for everyone out there. Likewise, someone could tell me to replace my weather station with an Arduino that has a humidity and temperature sensor, as well as a LCD screen - if they've worked with embedded and SoC devices a lot, they'd also be right, but their suggestion might not be quite as viable for me.
Each approach have their advantages and disadvantages. My argument is that you don't have to write an app even if you need the aforementioned fancy features (backups, cloud storage, sharing, editing in the browser etc.), because there are solutions out there that let you get pretty much all of those out of the box and not just for your notes.
Apparently setting up your own cloud service at home is really simple, super smooth experience, you just enter a command and there it is, interface, backups, security, just magic.
Because it deserves to be heard, as do those of people who disagree with me. When people disagree about their preferences of getting things done, that means that there are perhaps 2 approaches that work and that might just be worthy of exploration. You don't need to be Einstein to get things done in either of the approaches, the rest is about figuring out which tradeoffs you'd prefer to make.
Otherwise we'd end up with a generation of people who don't even know what even can be done. That whole "Dropbox is just rsync" is a bit of a meme at this point, but at the same time it might actually introduce someone to rsync and they'd benefit from it. I know that i sure did once i first heard about it. I have actually been introduced to many nice technologies and approaches due to similar discussions online.
I'd like to link this article on a similar note: https://milan.cvitkovic.net/writing/things_youre_allowed_to_...
If no one chimed in about self hosting, as people do about using Linux, FOSS and many other things, people out there wouldn't even consider those a possibility.
> You are just one of 100s of millions of people who use digital devices.
Maybe in a decade one or two of those millions will have converted to running their own services and a smaller part yet will contribute back to the community in some way: be it help with documentation, software development, testing, discussions etc.
