I've always been a tech savvy guy but my field is manufacturing, I'm not a software or web developer like a lot of the people on here so it's a bit of a slower pace and learning curve for me but I'm working on it.

I felt this in my bones. I do a lot of tech work, but basically none of it is programming or web dev. So lots of the self hosting stuff goes right over my head unless I really take the time to dive in. The worst part about self hosting is realizing how much you don’t know, but also knowing there’s probably a lot more that isn’t even on your radar.

Everyone has heard horror stories about the newbie self hoster just forwarding ports for every single service they run, not realizing that it’s turning their firewall into a sieve. And it’s the “not realizing” part that is scary. Especially when basically every Reddit thread about hosting something like Jellyfin will inevitably have a comment near the top, which is along the lines of “lol I just forward my port and it works.” Misinformation about best security practices is rampant, and filtering it out can be overwhelming for a newbie. Especially since the “not realizing” threat is always present. It’s always possible you made some dumb mistake that just exposed your entire LAN to the internet. And you won’t even know you made the mistake until all of your shit is ransomwared or being used to mine bitcoin.

how is it way less convenient? I switched from Proton to other services and I conveniency has increased since quality of services has increased. and because I don't really see many fundamental benefits of them being tied together.