I recommend a used Apple TV 3rd gen from eBay for around 40 bucks or less, with a 1080p hdmi display with built in speakers or small pc speakers connected to the displays headphone jack. Works great over here. I use it with my iPhone and the YouTube app. Netflix should work perfectly fine as well.
An older dvi display would work with an adapter, but those usually don’t have audio, the Apple TV only has digital audio output.

Netflix dropped off the 3rd Gen in July last year. Prime is looking flaky on my 2nd gen and dropped off chrome on win7 during Jan, so don't expect that to last long on 2nd or 3rd gen apple TV.... when the prices suddenly drop dirt cheap there's usually a reason.

I haven't actually made real progress on this whole thing was trying to get it out the way quick, now I'm nested 4 situations deep in other stuff. I want a quiet life to get back to pottering around with retro dammit.

Oh you’re right, I just realized that I have the 4th gen, I bought it 2 years ago in bad shape without remote for 50 bucks. I wanted to recommend that one and I am surprised to see that they haven’t gone down in price since then. The 4th gen seems to still support Netflix. Would that be an option for you?

For display I use a Fujitsu E22T-7, very nice 21,5“ 1080p led with speakers. Got it 4 years ago for 30 bucks. Fujitsu B22T-7 seems to be similar and more widely available on eBay here.

I have it vesa mounted on a monitor arm in the kitchen, those are around 40 bucks new. I imagine those to be great to use them around the bed to mount them in a position that’s comfortable if you want to watch in a laying position.

If you prefer a pc GeForce 8000 series seems to be the lowest end option, the 8400gs should be the cheapest. I have a pci version and want to try if I get YouTube 1080p to work on a Pentium 3, but probably a Pentium 4 is required for SSE3 or something. On Linux the nouveau driver is supposed to support the va-api that is required by firefox for hardware acceleration. Nvidias own driver doesn’t have vaapi but only vdpau which Firefox can’t use. There is a translation layer driver but it uses nvdec and supports only from 400 series or later I believe.

And sandybridges internal gpu should also do the trick for you. Those get extremely cheap over here. The dell optiplexes that are not sff but standard size desktops get basically thrown away sometimes, or sold for 10 bucks.

Also 2011 iMacs with builtin display and speaker are around 50, I got one for 5 even, windows 10 or Linux runs fine on them I think. They have those amd 4000 or 5000 GPUs i believe. The new Mac OS works with OCLP, but the GPUs is struggling in Mac OS, which is why people throw them into e-waste.

Raspberry Pi 4 seems to also do the job: https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-widevine/

I don't see where you ended up but under 32" TV do still exist. You can get a 24" 720p Smart TV that would play Netflix directly. https://www.amazon.com/insignia-fire-tv-24-in … v/dp/B0BC9Z81P6

If you already have a display with HDMI input. Previous gen Fire Sticks are $17, with current being $25. With all the DRM issues, just use something modern and cheap that can be fully controlled via a remote. Otherwise you are just asking to be bugged for all of the tech support issues.

I just tested Netflix on my Pentium 4 toaster; this time, it ran Windows 7 with a GTX 750 Ti. Supermium wouldn't initialise the DRM, so I had to switch to Firefox 115 ESR. Movies are a bit choppy, but still quite watchable. A 75 Hz refresh rate works best.
I might try it again with the original video card – a GeForce 6600 – installed. I even have another Pentium 4 system with integrated graphics to test, just to find the real bottom of the barrel.

Thanks for the tip on Firefox 115 ESR, there's a few things I wanna try that on now, Win7 machines need some help all round for modern streaming/web, even with 4x the CPU horsepower of a P4.