~the internet~ got easier to consume but self hosting in many ways became harder because of how hostile the internet has become.

Self hosting is so much easier than before, though. Tools like docker and Tailscale make operating servers and using VPNs pretty painless.

Routing to your home address could be hard, but it’s also pretty easy and cheap to set up a reverse proxy from a server you can rent. Routing through a public CDN is also easy and cheap and solves a lot of problems like DDoS.

Not really that much harder, if it’s only for personal use.

Not really. But sure didn’t get easier. Entropy and all that.