Not sure if others mentioned this but one can abstract away the configuration and sys-admin type tasks using a declarative language. Then the setup can be recreated effortlessly by others, reviewed and verified on an ongoing basis.

If the author found a self-hosting setup that works, it should be packaged and automatically reproduced elsewhere. It is always 10% of the work to make something work, 90% of the work is arranging it to be self-reproducing, self-maintaining, and self-documenting without excessive toil. I call this "self-*" computing.

NixOS does enables this to a degree, for example with nixos-mailserver[0)].

It would be nice if it could enable people with little sysadmin experience to self-host easily, but right now the bar for using NixOS and configuring these projects is still pretty high. Still, with enough work I imagine it could be possible.

[0] https://gitlab.com/simple-nixos-mailserver/nixos-mailserver