That is indeed quite a gap and nothing that fills the "discover weekly/release radarr" that spotify gives you once you use it for a while, I tend to go to tons of music events and I pick up music here and there.

Browsing what's popular/trending on beatport also helps a lot in adding fun tracks you wouldn't know from the radio.

Very True, that is one of the few things people don't realize enough when starting selfhosting. Backups and documenting what you did.

I have a raid NAS keeping my data in-house which has an encrypted backup in the cloud (Infomaniak kdrive) and my FiiO X3 SD card which is an additional portable backup. So on that front, I don't worry too much.

i decided to self host my library in as high of a res I could using Navidrome/subsonic.

I had a FiiO X3 anyway so i already had a FLAC capable player.

in the end, even if i know it's not for everyone. selfhosting is the only way to never lose what u love. so many of my lesser known tracks are just gone on spotify.