Many places make a distinction between "homeserver" (e.g mediacenter, NAS,.. ) and "homelab" (learning, test bed and fucking around).

Some people are interested in only one of these, so the distinction is not pointless.

I have to respectfully push back here. "hw/sw" garage is the perfect way to describe it. All of this takes place at one's home. There is no arbiter, but the individual over what is in or out to one's time at home.

Distinction springs from the person themselves.

I think ClumsyPilot's way to put it was just fine.

Sure, I never claimed that it is not "just fine".

I just said that the distinction is not "pointless" or "gatekeeping", as some people accused, but pretty common convention which can be quite useful for readers. In particular, you are pushing back against something nobody said.