The only problem is that I can’t convince my friends/roommates to embrace the media center piracy box. Literally the smallest level of extra work is too much. I’m not sure how to make it easier
I'd imagine it's a more generic term for a small PC (or maybe an Android TV box) running something like Kodi (home media centre program), and Kodi would have access to a drive (usually a network drive) full of pirated MP4s or whatever. I'm sure there's even more elegant solutions out there, but you get the gist.