That’s not the reality of the situation at all. That’s what the military industrial complex has paid out to get you to think that way
Wrong. Let them fail. Well-run competitors will scoop up what’s left.
And you're the norm, not the exception. Too many people choose to evangelize instead of looking at real-world use cases for the majority. I used to use Nvidia boxes around the house with Kodi. It worked but my wife and kids sure thought it was a pain in the rear often enough that it made it a pain for me too.
av1 is going to be super niche and never fully adopted, just like ogg was for audio. h264/265 will be the main thing going for years and is just fine.
This is what I do as well, though I also do have tailscale set up on my network as well so that's also an option.
That's always been pretty much a niche though (and I know as a former HDHomerun and Kodi user) and over time more people just stream their media anyway.
There's STILL not a great option for AppleTV. I bit the bullet years ago and have a lifetime infuse option. But that's not really any different than how I paid (also years ago) for a lifetime Plex Pass too.