I am enamored with the idea of SDF, and I think it is an important part of computing history and the present. That being said, I am curious as to whether anyone actually finds it useful—aside from the fact that it hosts the instance!!
For me, SDF is a refuge. It’s a part of the Old Internet where I can go and just enjoy a shell account for its own sake. Usenet, email, and a simple web page. Now with mastodon and lemmy, I feel like I’m contributing to a better Internet of the future while preserving and honoring the technology that started it all.
Mostly these days as a community and also a web presence. Through the years I’ve used it for many things: file storage, places to practice coding or run builds on other systems, a place to learn, gopher, a VoIP provider, a VPS provider, DNS host, blogging service, mail+usenet service, games, mailing lists, VPN, and a bunch of other stuff I’m sure I forgot.
I’ve been a member verifiably for 20 years (see my uinfo) but I’ve been around for longer than that. Probably closer to 25. It’s always just sort of been an extension to my computing. My membership has waxed and waned but there was rarely a time when I wasn’t donating at some level.
I find I don’t rely on services on SDF for critical stuff because sometimes they go down for extended periods of time or they go neglected. I do, however, appreciate the hell out of it.
I used SDF for pretty much everything for a while: usenet, email, shell, and hosted my gopher site here (until I deleted it a year or two ago). These days I’m mostly on SDF’s Mastodon instance and (occasionally) Pixelfed.
I just joined tonight so I’m not fully understanding what SDF is all about at this point and what I can do with it.
I mostly use it for my website and gopher space, thought it’s nice to have a trustworthy instance to use as a home base in the fediverse.
