I’ll admit I’ve only really been doing all of this fun self-hosting stuff for about 4 years now but I have been learning computer since Apple II. With my local fiber internet I have a static IP address and seem to have no barriers to expose my hosted websites to the internet. I’ve never used cloudfare and can’t imagine why I would need it. Use NGINX reverse proxy manager at both home and work. Some people have to jump through all these hoops and I’m just curious to know what situations necessitate all the extra hassle.
You want someone to summarize all the things the internet does?
I don’t think that’s going to teach you the most valuable lesson of all, and badly needed in this case… humility. All the best people I’ve worked with have been the most humble. They know how little they know.