Nope, works absolutely fine with cable as well. Not sure how it was in the past, but I’m not particularly missing any feature

Actually even for qr codes the pixel count (or rather camera quality) makes a huge difference. Got a new phone last year with much better camera then previous. Suddenly during presentations i didn’t need to awkwardly semi stand up and try to get closer. Just recognized the code immediately

Same for phones. But that’s the norm unfortunately

So what you can do hardware wise is either any usff pc with 2 drives (used Lenovo’s are fairly popular), or diy build with an Intel n150 board and some drives. Both are usually very silent since they don’t have active cooling. If you spend the money for ssd’s then it’s completely silent.

Wouldn’t go with off the shelf nas, since it’s a trend to move more and more behind subscriptions and you never know how long you’ll have a feature.

For Software:

I’d definitely go with jellyfin. Plex is commercializing hard.

Remote access is easy and secure with tailscale

For ebooks calibre-web

Music and torrent i don’t know enough to suggest anything

Base system maybe some truenas and all services as containers

It’s funny how the translation almost always goes back to front

Yes, but…

I do agree partially with your statement. But (as always) it’s a little more complicated.

BambooLab was known for their walled garden approach and that they have apple as their idol. So in that sense, people buying it, did so oftentimes willingly and therefore enabled the company to pull these stunts. I’m not blaming the people for going with the most comfortable solution, but that’s usually what you get

I do that sometimes, but only if the person in front of me is driving slower than my cruise control. then i overtake them, during which they obviously have to speed up and when i go back to cruise control speed now I’m the slow one

Physical for your main contract, esim for traveling

I had a similar approach until recently: 100€/year +100€, mostly 300-400€ phones for about 4-5 years (so not that many). But my last phone was 500€ and i doubt I’ll use it for 6 years, so let’s see