pull down to refresh

Agreed. Self custody is the only way. Lyn Alden recently went on Stephan Livera's podcast and explained how people who have self costody have disproportionately more power in consensus matters like forks than the ETF fund managers. There's nuance, but my takeaway was that the legal implications of holding on behalf of their investors complicates and slows their decision making, which is disadvantagous in fork scenarios. Haven't lived through this myself, so not 100% on how it works when theres a protocol change. Recommended listening -- a definite eye opener on 'governance' in the Bitcoin network.
Yes, I have seen clips of this episode and I want to watch the whole thing. As a practical matter, running your own node will definitely give you an advantage, as was demonstrated during the blocksize war. I was just getting started then so I am not fully versed either, but the book is excellent, in case you haven't read it yet:
reply
Thank for the recommendation. I'll definitely check it out.
Pretty good review over in BooksAndArticles where I see it got Darth's seal of approval. Impressive.
reply