Really? You're saying RDS backups can't be trusted?
Trusted in what sense, that they'll always work perfectly 100% of the time? No, therefore one must still check them from time to time, and it's really no different when self hosting, again, if you do it correctly.
No backup strategy can be blindly trusted. You must verify it, and also test that restores actually work.
Trusted in what sense, that they'll always work perfectly 100% of the time? No, therefore one must still check them from time to time, and it's really no different when self hosting, again, if you do it correctly.