Interesting to hear. One big thing I had to address was the fact that she lives in a rural area with very slow internet access and I don't. So I built in and option for us both to select a movie and a time for the date and it would pre-download a high-quality version.

It's a shame that apps like these are "illegal". There's so much fun innovation to be had.

I don't think the apps themselves are illegal any more than VLC is illegal. You could likely watch something on the app that is illegal depending on where you live.

Maybe the legality is clearer if they are self hostable? Then all the liability is on the user who downloaded the movies in the first place

I think this is the way to think about it. Mine was a desktop application with no central server.