That’s not the reality of the situation at all. That’s what the military industrial complex has paid out to get you to think that way

What exactly is that essential?

Wrong. Let them fail. Well-run competitors will scoop up what’s left.

Only if you torrent. Newsgroups still work wonders!

And you're the norm, not the exception. Too many people choose to evangelize instead of looking at real-world use cases for the majority. I used to use Nvidia boxes around the house with Kodi. It worked but my wife and kids sure thought it was a pain in the rear often enough that it made it a pain for me too.

av1 is going to be super niche and never fully adopted, just like ogg was for audio. h264/265 will be the main thing going for years and is just fine.

This is what I do as well, though I also do have tailscale set up on my network as well so that's also an option.

That's always been pretty much a niche though (and I know as a former HDHomerun and Kodi user) and over time more people just stream their media anyway.

There's STILL not a great option for AppleTV. I bit the bullet years ago and have a lifetime infuse option. But that's not really any different than how I paid (also years ago) for a lifetime Plex Pass too.