>but are they better than pirating?

Absolutely not. I am absolutely confident of that statement. One box of drives, a small machine to act as a Plex server, and VPN is all you need. Pre-made, high quality tools exist to automate everything. It's almost completely friction-less.

Pirating is easier, better, and faster now than it has ever been. The push to splinter streaming services is only speeding up its adoption, again. Cable is the old cable, streaming services are the new cable, but with more barriers and more difficult setup.

I'm not sure who downvoted you, but I cannot agree more.

For giggles, I just went ahead and priced this out:

One-time costs:

* Plex Pass: $80

* NZB indexer access: $10 (for 2 or 3)

Ongoing monthly costs:

* File server (three-year deprecation): $55

* IPTV: $15

* Unlimited Usenet account: $3

This took an afternoon of setup, but has just worked since. Heck, the other day I discovered a new season of a show had apparently been released – because it completed downloading and filled Plex overnight.

Drop the plex cost and use jellyfin

I bought a one-time Plex pass, so there's no ongoing cost. I've yet to see any significant reason to change away from it yet. Is Jellyfin better beyond the price?

This looks amazing. I have got to try it. Hopefully it works as seamlessly as Plex does.

I had been using Plex for many years and got sick of the way they try to force things like podcasts and web shows on you. I knew that advertising and library scanning was on the way if it wasn't already there so I switched to Jellyfin a couple of years ago. I have a number of friends and family that use my server as well and none of them have complained.

I tried Jellyfin. Although it is great for an open source project, it lacks polish. Especially on the android TV app, there are multiple obvious problems. I encountered too dealbreakers within the first half hour of usage:

- Resume does not work reliably

- Subtitles are ugly and un-configurable

I will keep monitoring it from time-to-time, and switch from Plex as soon as these 2 problems are fixed. Thanks for recommending, I have been on the lookout for such an app for a long time.

Or XBMC/Kodi. There are many well established free client softwares.

Where do you get Usenet for that cheap?

I was wrong – it was $3.99, so $4 :)

I picked up Thundernews when there was an "unlimited for $4" sale going on, and have used it ever since. Keep an eye out for their sales, because they don't seem to expire them. They resell UsenetExpress so pick up a block account or two from another provider for fills as always.