The difference between peer reviewed and self published
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Peer review means other qualified people have examined a piece of research before publication, checking its methods and reasoning for obvious flaws before it reaches a wider audience. It is not a guarantee of truth, but it does add a layer of independent scrutiny that self published material has usually not passed through.
Self published material can still be careful and valuable, particularly from people with genuine expertise sharing early findings or practical experience directly, but without independent review it places more responsibility on the reader to judge its quality directly rather than relying on that outside process, which most peer reviewed material has already passed through.
Knowing which category a source falls into helps calibrate how much weight to give it in a given argument. Neither label settles the question of quality entirely, but the distinction is a useful starting point when deciding how much additional checking a claim might reasonably deserve before use.