I can comment on that. But I get the sentiment. For my setup there always seems to be some small thing that is wrong all the time. Fix - fine for a few months... borked. When you just want to watch something. I currently have to go thru the system and figure out why it is not acting like an appliance. Start up is constantly an issue with my setup. So when anyone in the house wants to watch something they are coming to find me. Current suspect is the hdmi vs the tv I have is not setting up the connection correctly. For the amount of media I own it is not feasible to go back to the old system though so I stay. Also adverts suck. But I totally understand the sentiment.

I ran a home server last year with jellyfin, nextcloud, torrent server, etc. I ended up spending more time and money on the server than watching and paying for the actual content. And then the thing was always broken in some way.

I see, I guess I have been lucky in that regard.. I have my NAS plugged in, libtorrent with autoirssi and just a plex server running for the actual streaming though.

Its not about what it takes to do it yourself, its about the upkeep required to keep the family happily using it.