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Comment by nsxwolf | Hacker News Reader

This is not a good experience. I cannot order a box like an Apple TV and just hook it up to my new TV and go. It’s never as easy as anyone says it is, there’s always more steps involved than logging into iTunes and/or subscribing to some service with my credit card. Plus there’s always the chance of a lawsuit hanging over my head.

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For a tech illeterare person maybe. using `docker-compose up` to start a preconfigured sonarr, radarr, transmission with VPN , Plex or jellyfin is almost all you need. the only addition is getting a VPN service such as mullvad... If that's too involved for a software developer I'd call that person pretty incompetent, honestly.

This is exactly my point. I can do all these things. They’re the last thing I would ever want to do in my living room. This is analogous to the PC gamer master race thing. I have gaming PCs. I have consoles. The consoles are by far the better experience. They always will be. It’s the difference between “it just works” and “just have to”. You just have to do this, then that, and that… and then it’s just as good … oh until this or that update breaks the entire stack, or some weird quirk of the hardware or it’s OS kicks in and you’re in jank city when you really just wanted an elegant solution.

You got downvoted but once setup it really is easy. We have a little VM with deluge and a VPN. Couple little IPTables rules ensure it can’t even route traffic except over the VPN interface or the one VPN endpoint, making sure no traffic leaks. I’m more worried I’ll stub my toe and it will hurt than my traffic leaks. I showed my wife how to use it, no problem. Sketchy browsing happens with Guacamole and a browser in a (separate) VM that wipes itself every few days.

It's not a question of competence, it's just a drag...like the construction expert who procrastinates minor home repairs. I'll stay up all night teasing secrets out of locked boxes but when it comes to entertainment I lose interest after about 30 seconds so I just don't bother to pirate stuff unless I find a torrent in the first 30 seconds. I could just be reading a book instead.

> using `docker-compose up` to start a preconfigured sonarr, radarr, transmission with VPN , Plex or jellyfin is almost all you need.

That "almost all you need," is exactly why I'd rather just plug in an Apple TV. I'm not technically incompetent, I just have better things to do with my time.

Jellyfin's Syncplay and Roku app work as well, making group video watching easy

I have an Android TV and streaming subscriptions. If I want to stream something I have to find out what service carries it, open the right app, and attempt to type the title with the arrow keys on the remote. For me, it's much easier to torrent.

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