> I think that self-replication, and ability to harvest chemicals and energy from the environment to make more of what you're built of, is the point of complexification of chemistry that is best considered as the most primitive form of life

Once there are forms that harvest and self-replicate, however, its expectable that there will be forms that delegate those features to others, like viruses. Cellular machinery that is required to implement those feature is not free, so parasitic forms would have survival advantage.