Where do you draw the line tho? Your isp can also do a lot to you at home
“Self hosting” a relay on a $5 box from LNVPS or Hetzner or some other provider is NOT SELF HOSTING!
All you did was put some software on someone else’s server, and they control the servers.
Your hosting provider can still censor you, see your IP, tamper with your data on your relay and more.
Either run on your own hardware with Umbrel or similar (or like nostr:npub1qdjn8j4gwgmkj3k5un775nq6q3q7mguv5tvajstmkdsqdja2havq03fqm7) or save yourself the hassle and use https://nostr.land.
Discussion
Own the hardware stack for the relay and SSL termination.
A cloud host can mostly transparently interfere with your VM or just straight up ban you, just like any relay.
What about renting dedicated servers? While i get that everyone having a datacenter at home would be ideal (i sure want it) I feel like we're getting a bit too holy with everything. Is it better? Yes from many stand points.
But saying either run your own datacenter or use my service is not exactly the best message imho.
Those are better. Though in the end you are still reliant on the hosting provider which can be strict.
The benefit there mostly is running your own custom software, which is good if you are a relay dev or want to customize it heavily, but not if you are a normal user.
Many users do not benefit from this and would be much better off self hosting a relay on their Umbrel and making it accessible from Tor, and using commercial services for relays which have economies of scale.