Why wouldn't you want your home media server software running on the server that's in charge of storing your media?

There are many reasons to do so, such as wanting to use GPU acceleration or a better CPU than what your NAS or SAN has to offer.

For what it's worth this game allowed my partner to learn how to use two sticks at once.

It depends on the instance you're accessing the content from. Some remove content will still show up from other instances even if I remove it on sh.itjust.works.