• This assumes latency between one’s current location and the remote location is almost non-existent. It isn’t.
• This assumes we have fast and available internet all the time. I sure don’t.
• This assumes we can use the remote computer in every way we use our current computers. No way.
• This assumes, as you point out, they won’t be greedy once they control everyone’s machines. They will be.
• This assumes they won’t censor ‘dangerous’ sites on these machines. They will.

In summary. I will happily pay more for freedom from the corporation.

Yeah, if 90% of that is movies/shows, then you really don’t need a backup of that as you can always re-download it. Then you have a 5TB backup problem which is much cheaper to solve.

My suggestion: Buy 3x 28TB drives. Mirror the data to them. Then move them off site.

The off-site location could either be a family member’s home where you can then sync to the drives over the internet. Or in a PO box nearby that you retrieve them from time to time to re-sync the data.

Not good for: Tasks requiring human judgement or design decisions

So, like 99% of programming after you have been a professional programmer for longer than a year…

Was going to say, what will happen next month is he will be broke.

Might be worth looking into a PiHole. One of the nice features is the white lists. So even if a list you are subscribed to is blocking something you need, you can still allow it specifically.

And/or run adblockers on each device individually. I actually do both, as the on-device blockers don’t get things like Windows telemetry. (Thank god the only Windows machine on my network anymore is my work laptop.)

Yeah, forwarding a port to a server with SFTP allows you both to have two-way links. Have done this with some of my friends as well.

Sneakernet via a HDD is also damn helpful for initial bulk transfers.

I hate, hate, hate when I fix something and I don’t know why the fix worked (or what the fix even was…). I want my suffering to result in something learned so it doesn’t happen again.