Self Hosting is a New Way of Web Hosting. Is it the future?

Traditionally, hosting companies and ISPs have provided facilities, equipment, and software that allow individuals and entities to host their websites and web-services with them. Continuous availability, high bandwidth, large storage space, and reliable equipment traditionally made hosting with ISPs an attractive option.

The evolution of infrastructure and technologies however raises the question whether we are at stage where one can directly web-host from any internet connected PCs and even PDAs – sort of self-hosting. The voluminous growth in the quantum of user-generated content and advances in technology (web 2.0) makes self-hosting attractive. Firstly, user content is never required to be stored on third party servers, and secondly, there is no need for repeated uploads to third-party servers.

three other barriers traditionally dissuaded individuals and small entities from hosting off their home / office PCs.
1. Internet Addresses
2. Security
3. Ease of use

Internet Addresses
Individual PCs and Handheld computers usually do not have network addresses (IP address), which are required to connect PCs and handheld devices to the internet. In many cases, IP address is dynamically assigned and therefore change every time the computer connects to the Internet. (This is known as dynamic or non-static IP). A computer without an IP address is incapable of web-hosting.

Security
Another barrier to self-hosting is the sensitivity to issues around security and vulnerability of the computers. Home / Office PC owners are typically averse to hosting from their personal computers because this requires them to open ports on their machines. This can make them targets of malicious security attacks over the internet, and it calls for investment in security software that guard against viruses, spam and other malware.

Ease of Use
Lastly, maintaining and managing web-servers is viewed as a technical exercise by many common users, who therefore prefer to host with ISPs.