+1 again to what Mancy said. I just pay for the convenience. But yeah, if it’s not cumbersome for you to manage your own server then that’s great too!

As for the cost, oof I can’t even imagine. Besides, they have to make use of CDN services and what-not just so that the experience is consistent worldwide.

But then again, the server that I’m a part of has like 100 people paying every month, and this network is a consolidation of many such servers, so I think the costs and labor get distributed.

This!

I do the same for my parents. $10 a month, no fuss, 5PB of media from all over the world (and growing!), all high quality Bluray Remuxes along with Dolby Vision content and what not. Can even put in requests for something specific using a discord bot.

It’s just like the 2016 era Netflix never died.

The only investment is an Nvidia Shield Pro because it supports any darn format out there. Without it, you’re only limited to 1080p content (or 4k if the device can direct play) since transcoding anything above 1080p is not allowed due to processing limitations.

But yeah, it’s a set up and forget kind of service. Make sure to join a reputed server though. And never pay multi-month in a single go unless you’re absolutely sure of their trustworthiness.