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# The homelab is the hobby
- URL: https://matteson.ca/notes/the-homelab-is-the-hobby/
- Published: 2026-02-12T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-10T03:34:17.000Z
- Description: Stop pretending the server rack is saving you money. It’s a workshop, and workshops are allowed to exist.
- Author: Matteson Machielse
- Tags: Home Lab & Self-Hosting, #Import 2026-07-11 07:11, #Import 2026-07-15 05:50

Periodic reminder, mostly to myself: the rack does not need a business case. The spreadsheet where self-hosting “pays for itself” is fiction the moment you price your own evenings.

It’s a workshop. Workshops are allowed to exist because making things is good, and because the skills compound in directions the spreadsheet can’t see. The automation career exists because of things this rack taught me.