Can the vps provider not read everything on your server, unless it’s explicitly encrypted?
I’m asking because I’m interested in self-hosting mainly as a way to get privacy respecting services where good hosted ones don’t exist. I’m not sure I really want to deal with running my own hardware
As soon as someone else has access to the hardware, assume someone else has access to the data. Depending on your threat model this might be acceptable. If you just don’t want <INSERT GENERIC EVIL BILLIONAIRE> snooping, I’d say a VPS is a perfectly valid solution.
I use a dedicated server, but in this regard it is similar to a VPS, and I carefully consider what kind of data I put on it. I wouldn’t put very private data on there. Simply because I see no need for it to be there.
I don’t have an explicit threat model beyond “I don’t want anyone able to read my stuff”. It just makes me uncomfortable and I find myself limiting what I’m able to put down. I’ll trust a provider or service if I must, but generally I just prefer things to be E2E and not worry about it