You hit a point in life where you don’t want to constantly fuck with stuff and want something “that just works”. That’s why I switched from a rooted Android to an iPhone (that and features not on Android). I’ve had my Synology for 5 years and it just works. But the biggest draw for me is form factor. I don’t have space for an old ATX tower where all my networking equipment is. The synology just fits right on the shelf just fine. It also does everything I want with backups, docker, etc.

Could I use an old PC and do it all myself? Yup, easily. Is my time and effort worth the savings? Not as much as it used to be.