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
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