A little something about the author of the opinion piece.
During his testimony in December 2020, Kory erroneously claimed that the antiparasitic medication ivermectin was a "wonder drug" with "miraculous effectiveness" against COVID-19.
ModernUO is the most advanced implementation of RunUO/ServUO, worth checking out if you're starting a new project that isn't based on the newest UO content.
I used XBMC (and then Kodi) for many years, had it installed on AppleTV, FireTV, etc, etc but I eventually migrated fully to Plex. I found that I prefer Plex over Kodi when dealing with local media.
Eventually Kodi only felt useful if you wanted to dive into the world of streaming movies and shows from various shady sources.