Chinese companies famously ignore patent law and do make copies and try to flood the western market with them.
Most startups don’t have the time and/or money to patent their ideas and big corps do squash them/steal their ideas routinely once they become noticeable.
If anything, startups can’t develop their ideas because some company will hold a generic patent like “clicking a button does something” (or “glide with a pet”) from 30 years ago.
Just a note on landlording: if you do plan on going down this path make sure you research the law and its enforcement carefully for the area. Specifically, if in the future you need to go live in that house but you have a tenant, what can you do to get them out, and will the police actually enforce it if the tenant is refusing to leave?
Also consider the morality of it, e.g. if you suddenly decide you want to live there, how would you feel about evicting your tenant?
It’s probably not a problem if you can give plenty of advance warning (like several months) and such, but if you expect to move in on short notice it may be rough.
Would you like another try or is that actually the best you can do?
The last sentence changes this, you can video chat with people on earth and then invite them to your continent as equals. Could just get your friends and family on with you. Could even find new people online and invite them once you know them.
Plex runs relay servers where your Plex server will connect to the relay and your player will also connect to the relay, making both ends of the connection egress type as far as routing and access control goes. https://support.plex.tv/articles/216766168-accessing-a-server-through-relay/
It’s optional and likely not everyone uses it, but this provides a way for Plex to do remote streaming without the Plex server being reachable directly from the internet.
Separately, it costs money for Plex to run.
Is talking about your hobbies and interests really small talk? I always attributed small talk to the like of “how is it going? Fine thanks and you? Fine too thanks oh damn crap/great weather we are having huh?”