I ditched half my subscriptions, all because of one hobby

A personal account of how picking up self-hosting as a hobby led to cancelling multiple paid subscriptions. By learning Docker and experimenting with self-hosted apps like BentoPDF (replacing Adobe Acrobat) and Karakeep (replacing Pocket), the author discovered that many recurring payments were funding convenience rather than irreplaceable functionality. The key takeaway: self-hosting doesn't mean rejecting all subscriptions, but it forces each one to justify its cost.