I've tried on numerous occasions to host my own services at home and use dynamic DNS to map to an IP, but when things don't work, it's hard to know if it's the hardware (consumer modems, routers, etc.), dirty ISPs who want to force you into a business tier to open up anything, some combination of the two, or something else altogether. Are the problems so one-off and specific that they all require bespoke problem-solving?
I would love it if anyone could share foolproof resources on the subject.
As for your actual problem, a lot of ports are blocked by ISPs because a LOT of computer worms have used them to spread malware in the past. However you usually can test to see if the port is open as well as try alternative uncommon ports like 47364 to see if they work.
Some ISPs, although I believe mostly mobile ones, also use something called CGNAT where your Internet IP is actually an internal network IP within a part of the ISP, and you can usually test for this by checking if your IP is in a private range.
All of this is very interesting, but not very useful. I'm personally most intrigued by how people are maxing out their old hardware for years, like many examples in this thread
Was hoping this article would delve into hosting your own email, websites and services and the steps to expose them to the public internet (as well as all the requisite security considerations needed for such things).
A homelab is just a normal PC unless you're doing homelab stuff.