It is not just that it is a lot of work, it is that you lose power, or add a lot of risk. The example doesn't mention backups at all - when (not if) the computer fails then what? How do you access this cloud when not at home - again I didn't see this. How do you share data (only some please) with friends? How will you handle zero-days if the attacker decides to attack you - will you even notice or be the bad guy on the internet enabling attacks on others? Once you get things working when/how will you update - I've had several services that worked good until I updated and something in the config didn't migrate correctly and so it doesn't work.

I have some self hosted things, but because of the above I'm realizing that it is better to find someone to pay to take care of things for me. Someone large enough to get a sysadmin around 24x7, do trail upgrades, write the software/features... Unfortunately finding someone you can trust to do the above is important, and for many things there is no option.

I will likely always run jellyfix (or similar) for legal reasons. However for most things it would be better to pay someone I trust.

- Backups can be sent to the commercial cloud (encrypted) using Duplicati among other solutions. Or just a separate hard drive.

- You access your server using Tailscale VPN, he mentioned it.

- You can allow external access to your apps safely using cloudflare tunnel (per app). Immich works exactly like Google photos and there's even a really good app!

- Each app is in its own container sandbox, with basic hygiene and monitoring it should be fine. And you aren't a profitable target anyway.

- Update require to restart the container with the latest release, your data isn't erased. Solutions such as Umbrel have a community of open source devs doing the updates for you.

Overall, it's not about removing all of our dependency to commercial services, but to do the switch slowly and regain autonomy. Having an alternative, however how imperfect it is (Jellyfin often freezes for me!) is worth it - otherwise the future is bleak.