Many in this thread are totally missing the point of self-hosting. It's not "self-hosting and hence not having an Internet connection". It's self-hosting in addition to having the Internet (yeah, no, I didn't post this very message on my self-hosted island: shocker, I know).

> I understand that to some (maybe most) of you, those words meant nothing. That's kind of the point. All of that took 138 words to describe but took me the better part of two weeks to actually do.

I fully understand. I happen to also run a Proxmox server at home. I also installed the "I'm Mich" (immich) photo sharing app on it. I'm also running a Movies/Series/Music streaming service (Plex) (although I haven't containerized that one yet).

Private pastebin is sweet.

Private Git repo is always nice too.

Youtube downloader with a Web UI is convenient.

I run a serious ad-blocking DNS server: but when you self-host a service, it's zero ad by default.

Thing is: machines keep getting more and more powerful, so it only got easier and easier to self-host. Back then self-hosting meant buying huge used servers and put them in a rack. And you can still do that.

But you can also just a NUC and slap Proxmox on it and that'll already get you a long way (usual notice about lack of ECC / need for backups / RAID not being backups / ZFS not being backups etc. apply).

It got simpler to self-host, not harder.

Self-hosting doesn't mean you're a luddite with no Internet access. It just means there are a few services you host yourself. I don't know what's hard to understand about that?

Something has to be said too about what you'll learn in the process of setting all that up.

I understand you may need big corps to help you put your diapers on and feed you your baby bottle "because convenience": I do too.

Just not 100% of the time.