Well, it's a trade-off between comfort and privacy. You should self-host what you are capable of and deem of higest importance / privacy. To upgrade from gmail

Well, it's a trade-off between comfort and privacy. You should self-host what you are capable of and deem of higest importance / privacy. To upgrade from gmail, you don't even to jump directly to self-hosting. There are pay-to-use email-providers, who treat you like the customer, not the product. Similar services exist for video, etc.