I think there are different clusters of people who use servers, SSH, etc.

I'm closer to the cluster that uses them for deep learning experiments, GPU kernel optimization, robot development (a robot is just a server that moves!)... use cases where you are explicitly using a remote computer.

For this cluster of people, I think this tool feels more intuitive than the flow you suggest. But maybe I'm projecting!

And, to me, this just feels like one of the fundamental things that could exist; it's like a graphical operating system, but remote-first.

I guess it saves you the hassle of dealing with reverse proxies and TLS certs if your use case is "userbase is 1 person and it is me, and i only access services from a desktop os"

  myservice.example.com {
   basic_auth {
    admin some_password_hash_here
   }
   reverse_proxy :3000
  }

Btw, if you find yourself sending a lot of ports over ssh, you can also consider the option of having ssh start a socks5 proxy

ssh -D 4711 -q -C -N user@host

sets localhost:4711 up as a socks5 proxy you can tell your browser to use

...

A wireguard VPN is better of course; among other things because ssh is multiplexing over a single TCP connection and will encounter head of line blocking (where one dropped packet blocks all forwarded traffic until resent)