I’m ambivalent as to who uses the term and how, but a deviation from the general consensus of its definition might cause confusion for newcomers to the field who can’t make the distinction. That said, I enjoyed OPs post and appreciate the time they put into it.

Homelab on the other hand is not synonymous with self-hosted infrastructure and services, as its intended use is not for production workloads.

I wrestled with whether or not I should be that guy, but self-hosting by definition generally means everything down to the bare metal, i.e. not a VPS.

I can understand how the term could apply to the broader definition of running your own services on managed infrastructure, but it seems odd not to make that distinction in a beginners guide.

Harbor