No worries, I'll just use the torrent sharers. I bet those will give me a constant 4K quality on all my devices, no ridiculous DRM, get to keep them once I terminate my "subscription", etc. Oh and it's free, not 10-15$ USD for each service.

I may (or may not) have built my own Netflix competitor. It had more content than all of the major providers combined.

Legal buffer: I will not say what the content was. It may have all been non-copyrighted cat videos ;)

The service was available cross region. Stored videos in multiple resolutions for streamability in low-bandwidth situations. No DRM bs. It cost me under $400/month to run the whole service, and I could access it from any device, anywhere I had internet.

I gave access to a few friends and family and they all chipped in to help cover expenses (it was never profitable). I ran it for a few months before I started to lose interest in maintaining it - it was mostly just a proof-of-concept, and fell back to Netflix/HBO/other subs for convenience.

I applaud Netflix, HBO, etc for offering competitive solutions to monopolistic cable companies and other restrictive media outlets, but this will always remain a problem.

Once you create a piece of art and put it out for the world to see, you cannot control how/when/where it will be shown. Stop trying... Just make it more convenient for people to pay to view it.

Going after people for low-level copyright violation, like sharing a password, is childish.

I use the free version of plex. Only pain in the ass is having to pay the ~$5 to authorize for a new android device to use the app.

It does everything I need to watch my...personal home videos.

I'm sure I could use a completely FOSS setup, but plex is convenient especially paired with...other services.

If you want completely FOSS setup, check out Jellyfin [0], it keeps steadily improving.

[0]: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin