Wouldn’t say scam but potentially unsustainable. Some years ago I signed up for a brand new startup Nextcloud service which was priced far too low & went under very quickly. Switched to a hosted Nextcloud provider who had been around a long time (still around). They were really good but after a short time I decided to learn how to host it myself.
Hardware wise you don’t need much, I upgraded to a used Pi5 8GB with fanless heatsink case & added an m.2 SSD. Only 1 user on my instance but I often share folders with others, it’s robust & never once crashed.
If exposing to www you need to keep your network secure. There’s a learning curve but self hosting can be rewarding. Any if you’re lucky you might get to spend hours & hours problem solving when something breaks 😉😁
I’m not an “imagephile”, my eyes can tell the difference between 4k & 1080p but for a 45 min TV show I couldn’t care less if its in standard def.
We have an HTPC handling all media including TV recrdings so I took a USB with a few media files of differing qualities & tested them on TV’s in the store - no way I’m buying a TV without seeing how it handles everyday stuff that isnt the ridiculous over bright awful motion smoothed in store demo scenes.
I’d never use the “smart” features of a TV, that thing is never going online.
Last 3 TV’s have been Panasonic. One of them was a lower priced set but still fantastic picture. Not the best UI & to be honest a nightmare menu system but excellent panels & no ads or BS in the UI.
The way the tech overlords are heading I’m not looking forward to replacing our set when it eventually needs it