This feels like emulation with extra steps

I feel these sockets may have been a practical choice for power supplies that extend too far up or down. This approach gives the best of both worlds for them to be able to plug in whatever is needed. Why are they in the ceiling above a dart board? No clue…

Cloudflare tunnels is the way to go for small self hosted content. You’re hiding behind their ddos protection and your IP / location remains hidden from end users.