Can the vps provider not read everything on your server, unless it’s explicitly encrypted?
I’m asking because I’m interested in self-hosting mainly as a way to get privacy respecting services where good hosted ones don’t exist. I’m not sure I really want to deal with running my own hardware
Technically a lot of the newer chips used in datacenters support encrypted VMs which encrypts the RAM too, although you still have to trust that the hosting provider uses that feature.
Irrelevant unless you own the key they are using for it
I’m assuming that would drive up costs, so not very many use it
They will offer it as an optional service and charge you for it. So yes they use it.