Another thread where I can't determine whether the "it's easy" suggestions are from people who are clueless or expert.

Ironically you need a bit of both. You need to be expert enough to make it work, but not "too" expert to be stuck in your ways and/or influenced by all the fear-mongering.

An expert will give you thousands of theoretical reasons why self-hosting the DB is a bad idea.

An "expert" will host it, enjoy the cost savings and deal with the once-a-year occurrence of the theoretical risk (if it ever occurs).