• For patriots, politicians and NPCs: As long as there is democracy in the name (Democratic Republic of Korea)
• For decent people: As soon as the laws/choices the government produces are no longer what the average person would choose.

I’ve been self-hosting it for about 10 years now. It’s a castle built on sand (PHP): It’s hard to install, hard to update, and becomes slower by the day, but once you have learned Docker, Apache, SSL and a bit of SQL, it works mostly reliable.

If you just want file syncronization you could just buy a hosted instance, and use Cryptomator for protecting your privacy. Then you can have Nextcloud in under 30mins.
If you want to store large amounts of data, or you also want to use Calendar, Collabora, Talk,… then self-hosting will be cheaper/more private. But it will require lot’s of learning, far more than the ordinary person can do.

Innovation and competition at it’s peak: You get to choose the color of your noose.

But (presumably) no cash or crypto because someone has to take a 3% cut.