I grew up hosting PHPBB, game servers, ratio'd FTPs among many other things in the 90s. Dozens of friends used my "services". It didn't contribute to anxiety. I

I grew up hosting PHPBB, game servers, ratio'd FTPs among many other things in the 90s. Dozens of friends used my "services". It didn't contribute to anxiety. It taught me a lot of skills because I wanted the things we used collectively to be available. Were they always? Nope. That was the contract. Fast forward to today and it's no different. The complexity has increased, yes. But in many ways some of those complexities make things easier. The hosted solutions I provide friends and family with are rarely offline. Do I hit 5 nines annually? The real question is - does anyone care? No. But if I were to guess my downtime is cumulatively less than a few hours per year. If you're drawn to it don't be distracted by an opinion of others who project these sorts of narratives. For some it may create anxiety - so don't do it, but for others they may find a path in their career through learning via the self-host path. And if people you're providing ancillary services for are jerks about a bit of downtime here and there, and those folks are not contributing to your endeavors then tell them to go fly a kite. Because nobody I've shared self-hosting with has ever truly complained. I've had years of fun banter, especially in the earlier days, around uptime. But those people weren't trying to cause discourse. Those people are still friends. I enjoy following the self-host community, contributing in minimal ways, and self-hosting useful things for friends and family. It doesn't keep me up at night. I'm constantly improving because of it.