Amazingly, Valve actually fought off the scalpers. At least in the US. 6 hours later and everything seems to still be in stock, including the LE. It's still a rough ride ordering though, with 502 errors constantly.
The overhead isn't the storage but the request. Processing a request takes CPU time, which can get expensive when people setup a media server and request subtitles for dozens of movies and shows. Every episode of a TV show is a separate request and that can add up fast when you scale it to thousands of users.
I can't think of any hardware that Valve has abandoned. Sure they've stopped making plenty, but pretty much everything is still supported, and in many cases works even better because the software developed for them still exists and gets updated(SteamVR, Steam Input, Steam Link, etc). Closest you can get to abandonment were the Steam Machines, and even then they were just PCs and you could easily install another Linux Distro on them, or even Windows.
According to the guys who left, Management forced unrealistic targets on the Editor in Chief, then used him not meeting those targets as an excuse to fire him. Everybody else quit in response.
I kinda like how the US OTA channel H&I airs an episode of TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT six nights a week. 5 hours of Star Trek almost every night is pretty awesome. They just progress through each show in release order, until they finish all the seasons and loop back to start over again.
Seriously, I'm always confused by people complaining about NASA's budget. It's peanuts in comparison to the other stuff our Government wastes money on. Also doesn't help that the government itself is responsible for a lot of the money wasting that happens at NASA. The Artemis program being the perfect example, which is basically just a glorified jobs program at this point, as mandated by the government, instead of actually being a smart way of building a rocket.
Plex has made it clear they're trying to go "legit", focusing on features like their FAST service for free movies and TV, instead of addressing issues and features for the normal video hoarder user they originally catered to.
If you have Plex already, and especially if you paid for a lifetime membership, it still works fine. But if you're new, I wouldn't recommend it. Emby is also ok, but I'd definitely recommend trying Jellyfin first.
As long as it's not AAA