If you use a third party app that can play directly, like Infuse, or your CPU has Intel QuickSync, then you’ll likely be fine. For security cameras unless you need any sort of facial recognition or object detection just a CPU will still be fine. If you need anything more advanced then a GPU is necessary

What exactly does this do? Youtube-DL’s a video and then lets you watch it?

All fun and games until you’re on a restricted network where even OpenVPN is blocked

Whats the provider? Also, unless your friend is paying for it, why not check out something like Oracle Cloud’s Always Free Tier?

I only pay for iCloud+ for mail

No problem I think they actually have an example

You can setup SMB and enable the Time Machine option

Mullvad, it’s extremely popular among privacy advocates