I know its not a YouTube channel but man I will prefer Michael Bazell from Intel Techniques over all these YouTube Channels. He does privacy and security for a living so he knows his thing and its very realistic about privacy and security.
If I understand correctly if you are using Tailscale your VMS are not being exposed on the internet. You are connecting directly to your home network and that’s how you can access them remotely. As for your second question , just download and share a bunch of Linux ISO’s ;)
I agree with you in all your points and I have also look into why people just give up their privacy so easily , most of the time what I have noticed is that they (we all) love convenience. You want a plug and play camera? Buy ring , Need a plug and play router with a nice App? Buy google and Amazon Eero. Need to promote your business? Where is everyone at? Facebook , Twitter and Google. Most regular people give up their privacy for convenience, they don’t have time dealing with thousands of option on a PF sense router , no time to create VLAns.
I didn’t wanted to assume that you want someone else to pay for your storage, electricity , maintenance of a server with unlimited storage space. You go and pay for your own buddy , nothing in this life is free.