VPN limiting your bandwidth? Sounds like a CPU issue. You’ll be surprised how much CPU overhead it takes to encrypt and decrypt traffic at such high speeds.

One warning, though: After moving, you’ll probably need another Google account again, to use the Play Store… it sucks.

I did as well, but then I went Microsoft and never looked back. Google’s platform still feels like a shitty startup with missing stuff everywhere, compared to Azure (or AWS).

The only thing I’m missing is Google Photos, but there are self-hosted alternatives out, that I’ll try soon.

I mean, they kill services willy nilly. Sure Gmail will probably survive, but the rest drove me away (Reader, Music, …).

Regarding your Android purchases: At the time of my move I went through my list of apps I bought and tallied the ones up, that I still used. It was less than $50 of repurchases.

Don’t let those old purchases hold you back. Cut this old baggage loose.

Do NOT self-host email! In the long run, you’ll forget a security patch, someone breaches your server, blasts out spam and you’ll end up on every blacklist imaginable with your domain and server.

Buy a domain, DON’T use GoDaddy, they are bastards. I’d suggest OVH for European domains or Cloudflare for international ones.

After you have your domain, register with “Microsoft 365” or “Google Workspace” (I’d avoid Google, they don’t have a stable offering) or any other E-Mail-Provider that allows custom domains.

Follow their instructions on how to connect your domain to their service (a few MX and TXT records usually suffice) and you’re done.

After that, you can spin up a VPS and try out new stuff and connect it also to your domain (A and CNAMR records).