An Apple fan who has spent “nearly 30 years as a loyal customer” says they’ve been “permanently” locked out of their Apple Account due to what might be the overzealous actions of Apple’s automated anti-fraud system. It’s left them locked out of “20 years of digital life,” and it all started with the seemingly straightforward purchase of an Apple gift card.
I’m sure I’m stating the obvious, but you can do both. I backup my important self-hosted data to the cloud (B2, in my case). I also have a colo that I backup to.