How I Accidentally Built My Own Cloud in an Attempt to Run Away from US Big Tech

By David Relich May 16, 2026

This was not supposed to happen.

It really wasn’t.

A few weeks ago, I just wanted to listen to my music collection properly again. That’s it. No grand anti-corporate manifesto. No “self-host everything” masterplan. No dreams of becoming a late-night infrastructure goblin yelling at reverse proxies while holding a cup of coffee that had gone cold three hours earlier.

And yet, here we are.

It started innocently enough.

Over the years, I slowly realised how much of my digital life lived entirely on other people’s servers. Music, photos, files, calendars, contacts… even basic continuity between devices depended on some giant company deciding their platform, subscription, licensing agreements, or business direction still aligned with my needs.

The music thing was the breaking point.

I’ve bought music digitally for years. Some from iTunes, some elsewhere. Then one day I noticed a few purchased albums quietly disappearing from availability. Not from my local library — thankfully — but from the service itself. Streaming versions changed. Tracks got replaced. Some releases vanished entirely.

That uncomfortable little thought appeared:

Wait… do I actually own any of this?

Turns out, not really.

So I started ripping my vinyl collection properly. Lossless audio. Clean metadata. Embedded artwork. The whole thing. Which, naturally, led to building my own local-first music player app called Needle because apparently I’m physically incapable of leaving well enough alone.

At first, Needle was just supposed to be a desktop player.

Then I thought:

Wouldn’t it be nice if playback position synced between devices?

Which led to a backend.

Then:

Wouldn’t it be nice to access it remotely?

Which led to a web player.

Then:

Wouldn’t it be nice if it worked outside my home network securely?

Which led to VPNs, reverse proxies, domains, Docker containers, and a Raspberry Pi quietly transforming into what can only be described as a tiny caffeinated infrastructure goblin.

Suddenly, I had:

  • my own music streaming service

  • my own movie and TV streaming service

  • my own photo platform

  • my own file cloud

  • my own calendar sync

  • my own contacts sync

  • my own code hosting

  • automatic backups

  • remote access

  • multi-device playback handoff

At some point during this process, I stopped building side projects and accidentally built… infrastructure.

A personal cloud.

And the weird thing is: I didn’t do it because I hate cloud services.

I actually like convenience. I like polished UX. I like things that “just work.” I spent years in the Apple ecosystem precisely because everything worked together so effortlessly.

What changed wasn’t my appreciation for good software.

What changed was my relationship with ownership.

I realised I don’t mind cloud services.

I just increasingly want the important ones to be mine.

My files.

My music.

My photos.

My contacts.

My backups.

My continuity.

Not because I think giant tech companies are evil moustache-twirling villains sitting in volcano lairs, but because priorities change. Products change. Licensing changes. Platforms disappear. Services get shut down. Features move behind subscriptions. Entire ecosystems pivot overnight.

And when that happens, I’d rather migrate my own systems than beg somebody else not to break my digital life.

Of course, there’s a funny irony here.

In trying to reduce dependence on big tech, I ended up re-learning:

  • Linux permissions

  • Docker

  • reverse proxies

  • SSL certificates

  • CalDAV/CardDAV

  • backup strategies

  • networking

  • media indexing

  • mobile sync weirdness

  • why .local hostnames are agents of chaos

And I now spend an alarming amount of time saying things like:

Hang on, let me check the container logs.

Which, I suspect, is how the descent begins for all of us.

Still, there’s something incredibly satisfying about opening my phone and knowing:

  • my contacts sync through my own infrastructure

  • my music streams from my own server

  • my photos live on my own hardware

  • my backups exist in multiple places I control

  • my apps are built around my workflows instead of engagement metrics

It feels calmer somehow.

More intentional.

And honestly? More personal.

The funniest part is that none of this happened through ideology. I didn’t wake up one morning wanting to “escape Big Tech.” I just kept solving one annoyance after another until I looked around and realised I had accidentally built my own ecosystem.

Which, in retrospect, may have been the most developer thing I’ve ever done.

Tags