What you’re doing with Hetzner is just a few less layers of abstraction compared to AWS or Azure. They can still theoretically take down the machine or steal your data, if they wanted to.
I don’t know what the correct definition of self hosted is, but there is a big ideological difference between what you’re doing and self-hosting actual, physical hardware in your home.
In fact, I’d argue the physical risk of loss, theft, or data compromise is much higher at home than in a professional datacenter with power redundancy, security controls, and constant uptime monitoring.
It’s a bit like saying, "Don’t trust the bank, they could take your money and freeze your account — keep all your money under the mattress." Technically possible, yes. But come on.
But my point Hetzner isn’t self-hosted. Similar to how storing money in a bank isn’t self-banking. Self-hosting means you host your content yourself in a server room that you have physical access to. Hetzner isn’t that.
And that’s fine, self-hosting is pretty silly for most use cases nowadays. And all of the positives you mentioned are true. But I hate how we’ve turned “self-hosting” into a political dog-whistle for hosting with companies that seem more trustworthy than the big guys. And there’s nothing wrong with not wanting to trust GCP or Azure - just don’t call it self hosting.