But people self host email today, and there are many more email orgs around including private work email and specialised services such as Proton mail focusing on privacy and security. It’s a good analogy.
An open standard like Mastodon will allow big players but also niche and small players, who can focus on specific communities or offering specific spins.
The trees growing out of the buildings in this one.
I remember growing up it was insanely easy - Kazaa, Limewire, Napster - you just downloaded the client, searched for what you wanted and started the download.
Torrenting plus VPN/proxy has been standard for a while and is fairly straight forward. The motivation has changed rather than the access - all the content has fragmented between multiple paywalls again as the big media companies try to milk customers. And at the same time all the media companies are cutting back on content spending. So there is less good new stuff, more expensive to access and inconvenient as its spread more widely.
I’ve coincidentally bought this machine for similar purpose, arriving tomorrow.
I’m intending to install a Linux KDE environment on it and use it as a living room PC, steam Linux machine, stream from my PC for 4k gaming, and a Jellyfin /Kodi box. I could probably keep windows 11 on it but I prefer the privacy and control I get with Linux plus it’ll be a fun little project.
Was on sale for £270 here, and looks overpowered for what OP’d need.
Raspberry Pi 5 is also available for like £80 and that’s capable for 4k video (although frustratingly the web browsers aren’t able to take advantage of hardware video accel from my tinkering; you have to use dedicated apps like Kodi, freetube etc). That could also be a viable route for Plex / Jellyfin / Kodi machine media server and player or even just server.
Edit: worth point out a raspberry Pi costs the same as 10 months of just Disney+ without ads. Once you throw in other streaming subscriptions… May pay for itself much sooner…
PSA: GDPR still applies in law in the UK too; it has not been repealed