None of my mobile devices are “necessary,” though. Honestly, I could live just fine without an internet connection. Not that I’d enjoy it, but that’s not necessary.

“Necessary” is a little ambiguous. You could argue that wifi is unnecessary for a normal home network.

Here’s my use-case, I’m pretty sure the first 2 are pretty common (common enough to be supported by most OEM firmware):

• main LAN
• guest LAN (isolated from “main” but can access internet)
• IoT LAN (isolated from internet, can be accessed from “main”; prevents devices from phoning home)

Openwrt works great for gigabit networks with simple firewall rules and no IPS. But used 10-56gbps enterprise equipment is getting pretty cheap, and more complicated firewall configurations need more powerful hardware than the typical openwrt router.

And 56gbps on a home LAN might be overkill, but that’s not important.

OK, guess I misunderstood

Are you really suggesting someone buy a used Ford Lightning to use as an alternative to a DIY UPS and never drive? The DIY UPS sounds 100x more practical.

Counterpoint: all of that is irrelevant if the legal owners don’t care enough to sue you.

What if the “bag of money” didn’t have any money in it at all, and the cost of recovering and properly disposing of the “bag of money” cost the legal owners more than what the bag and it’s contents are worth?