Technology has evolved since 1979, modern encodings can get a lot better numbers than what was possible back then. And amateur radio is at least nominally about experimentation, not "only do the same thing we did 40 years ago and question everything newer" or "but somebody else is already working on this".
Nah, in europe you have PMR446[0] free for all, but this was free even before the dvb-t adoption, and you can use it only for voice communications. Former TV bands were/are used for 4G and 5G (eg 700MHz and 800MHz bands).
In most european countries, getting a ham licence is a pretty cheap process (in slovenia, in some radio clubs, if you don't need a printed book (just a pdf), you can join a 10-15hour theoretical and practical course + licence exam for somewhere around 50eur)