Once upon a time, I tried running a relay at home. Certain websites started blocking my IP - their operators wanted to block exit nodes, but indiscriminately blocked all IPs from the Tor directory, both exit nodes and relay nodes. At that point, I stopped doing it.

Tor bridges do not have this problem, do not consume a lot of bandwidth, and are very useful for people who need to circumvent firewalls. I have been running one for years without any issues. The Tor Project is currently looking for more volunteers to run bridges:

https://blog.torproject.org/run-tor-bridges-defend-open-inte...

This is different from an exit node, right?

Don’t worry. You won’t get a subpoena or get a surprise visit from you-know-what. Tor relays just relays data, while exit nodes relay data from tor to Internet.