What sounds like gatekeeping is often a strongly worded emphasis on having the prerequisite knowledge to not just host your services, but do it in a way that is secure, resilient, and responsible. If you don’t know how to set up a network, set up a resilient storage, manage your backups, set up HTTPS and other encryption solutions, manage user authentication and privileges, and expose your services securely, you should not be self-hosting. You should be learning how to self-host responsibly. That applies to everything from Debian to Synology.

Friends don’t let friends expose their networks like Nintendo advises.

I wonder if anyone’s tried to play Bad Apple! on the branch graph.

(edit) Not exactly, but close. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I8Jis87nmE

Branch on every commit. Never delete. If something needs to be rolled back, merge it back into HEAD. Conflict resolution only through melee combat.