The flip side of 'stop relying on some faceless entity to manage it' is that it is a LOT of work to keep something like this up and running. Google automate it and have a ton of engineers to tend to things. But everyone else has to take care of software upgrades, security patching, backups and restore, cyber threats etc.
In the long run, independence is worth something. It is just costly.
That's why, in spite of being on the Internet since 1994, I haven't ever really self-hosted anything. At every point, it looked like too much hassle and too much expense.
In this case, I've identified a couple of hard target outcomes which pertain to accessing documents, backing up photos in a way that I understand and trust, and a couple of other minor things, and it appears to me that those specific targets are in reach at a non-crazy price.
But I agree, it's very intimidating to even contemplate, hence my coming to get the thoughts of this community on what's the best way.
There's a lot that can be automated now. I self-host everything, been doing for more than a decade now. Partly on home server and partly on servers I rent.
Everything is kept up to date and the pain points have been fairly low.
It's definitely not a set-up and forget thing, but it is definitely not a lot of work.
It's also a good way to learn things, the process itself is not a waste of time.
In the long run, independence is worth something. It is just costly.