Is it maybe because of physical distance? How far is your VPS from the Backblaze region? Check the bucket "S3 Region". I'm stuck on west, for example, even though I live on the other side of the country. There's a way to switch, but I haven't had the need to bother with it.
walden
Self hosting a calendar isn't too difficult. I use NextCloud personally, but as the saying goes "it's overkill for your specific requirements". Nothing wrong with overkill, though.
Another option might be LubeLogger. It's designed to track car maintenance, but you can set up time based reminders. For example you can create a "vehicle" called Dishwasher and set a once a month reminder. The problem is notifications... LubeLogger only does email if you set it up. I hacked together Ntfy notifications but that was one of the more difficult things I've ever figured out. It's possible, though.
I love MikroTik, but I don't think it meets OP's needs. RouterOS isn't beginner friendly.
Private trackers are appealing to a lot of people because of the quality. Quality uploads, quality seeders. People who buy access haven't shown that they possess knowledge regarding how to participate in a private tracker.
They are more likely to hit-and-run, have a bad ratio, or break other rules. They don't have a track record to show that they probably don't work for a record company/studio, etc. They are a burden to the volunteer staff for these reasons.
If you're a good seeder as you've claimed, then working your way up shouldn't be difficult. It just takes time and some dedication.
Man, I used to LOVE defragmenting drives. I felt like I was actually doing something productive, and I just got to sit back and watch the magic happen.
Now I know better.
What's Netflix? That thing I cancelled years ago?
I have Frigate running with a reverse proxy, a coral, etc. I just use the internal Intel GPU on my CPU and it works with a 1080p and a not-quite-4k stream (4MP maybe?). It's no sweat for the hardware.
GPU is only used to detect motion, and you can even configure a lower resolution sub-stream from your cameras to reduce that load, but I don't think you'll need to.
Once motion is detected, Frigate fires up the coral to determine what is there. A car, dog, person, etc.
I have everything get recorded with no processing to a single WD Purple, the biggest I could afford. It holds months of video before rewriting over old stuff.
I have Amcrest cameras which are rebranded Dahua I think. I'm relatively happy with them, but I've always dreamed of owning Axis cameras, though they are a bit pricey. My cameras are on a VLAN that can't access the internet.
Hope that helps.
I'm not an expert, but I think we need more information.
Sounds good to me.
I can only speculate, but PieFed seems great for a community like blahaj. It makes it super easy root out disrespectful users.
Vanilla nginx is still too far over my head, but Nginx Proxy Manager makes easy work of it.
A lot of people like Caddy but I've never tried it. The config files are much simpler and it auto-renews certificates (but so does Nginx Proxy Manager).