I haven't really looked into the availability magazines, but a block account (rather than a subscription) would probably last you ages, since I assume the size of each issue would be rather small. So that would be a small onetime payment.
As for indexer I guess it depends on what you need, but there are some with free tiers.
As for complicated I don't think Usenet is any more difficult than other methods. At least for movies/series it's a one time setup to automate everything and then it is extremely convenient.