

Honestly if there’s one service you should be able to self host effortlessly it’s email. Email is basically your identity on the internet, but it’s so, so hard. Yes yes you can spin up an SMTP server pretty simply, but good luck getting anything past your ISP and into literally anyone else’s inbox.








Then you get the folks coming out of the woodwork going “herp derp it’s really simple, you just have to buy a domain, then set up all these records, then you line up all eleven chaos crystals on the altar of despair and chant the forbidden words, then you…”
I think saying “It’s really simple” is actually terrible from a pedagogical point of view. It just makes the learner go “Well I guess I’m dumb because I don’t get such a simple concept.” I get people saying this are trying to be reassuring, but it should be remembered that pretty much anything is simple if you do it a million times. I’m sure brain surgery is simple for a brain surgeon, but I’m not a brain surgeon. I think it’s better to say "This is a long process with a lot of moving parts, but let’s take a breath and tackle it one step at a time and we’ll get through it. Sorry not ranting at OP, I just see this attitude all the time in IT and it bugs me.
I career changed into IT years after college, so I was already an adult when I entered my first trembling keystrokes into a blank terminal window. I vividly remember how intimidating it all felt.