cross-posted from: https://poptalk.scrubbles.tech/post/2333639
I was just forwarded this someone in my household who watches our server. That’s it folks. I’ve been a hold out for a long time, but this is honestly it.
They want me to pay to stream content that I bought from my hardware transcoded also on my hardware.
I’ll say it. As of today, I say Plex is dead. Luckily I’ve been setting up Jellyfin, I guess it’s time to make it production ready.
Edit: I have a Plex Pass. More comments saying “Just buy a plex pass” are seriously not getting it. I have a Plex Pass and my users are still getting this.
And for the thousandth person who wants to say the same things to me:
- YES I know I’m unaffected as a Plex Pass owner.
- My users were immediately angry at it, which made me angry. Our users don’t understand what plex pass is, and they shouldn’t have to, that’s why I had it. The fact that they were pinged even though it should have kept working is horribly sloppy
- Plex is still removing functionality. I don’t care that “People should pay their fair share”. If Plex wants to put every new feature behind a paywall, that’s completely okay. They are removing functionality.
- “But they have cloud costs”. Remote streaming is negligible to them. It’s a dynamic DNS service. Plex client logs in, asks where server is, plex cloud responds with the IP and port of where server is located. That’s it.
- “Good luck finding another remote streaming” - Again, Plex just opens up an IP and port. Jellyfin also just opens up an IP and port (Hold on jellyfin folks I know, security, that’s a separate conversation). All “remote streaming” is is their dynamic dns. Literal pennies to them. Know what actually is costing them money? Hosting all of that ad-supported “free” content that they’re probably losing money on.
In short, I don’t care how you justify it. Plex is doing something shitty. They’re removing functionality that has been free for years. I’m not responding to any more of your comments repeating the same arguments over and over.
I feel like people getting mad at this shit don’t even use plex. I run my server on lifetime pass. Have it on my Nas with overseer, radarr, sonarr, all that shit. Just a couple of months of not having subscriptions for me and my family pays for plex. If you log on plex once a month this shit ain’t for you to worry about.
thats closed software 101 now, hook us then make us pay if only there was something that was always free forever
Uninstalled. I don’t mind as much for sharing my library but if I have to pay to stream MY OWN SERVERS CONTENT using your service, that’s a hard pass. My homes all use jellyfin now
Dropped this for jellyfin years ago
I love Plex and will continue using it. I bought a lifetime Plex Pass years ago for and have no regrets. My Plex Pass means none of my watchers have to worry about paying anything.
I have plex set up with cloudflare tunnels, with the url configured in plex under
Settings > Network > Custom server access URLs, does this mean that my users will no longer be able to view content inside the plex app or app.plex.tv? The enshittification is realOpen Source
People use Plex?
“On 21 May 2008, XBMC developer Elan Feingold forked the source code of XBMC and started a new project called Plex”
GPL v2 source.
They’ve long been suspected of being greedy lil GPL violaters.
Oh no a paid, proprietary, piece of shit software does something shitty. Who could’ve ever saw this coming?!
I’ve said it for years anytime anyone mentioned running a Plex server. As soon as you install that on your server or your homelab it’s no longer your server. Proprietary software is malware
The more users on Jellyfin the better shot it has at getting more developer attention and users willing to contribute financially even if just occasional one off donation. How it goes with any open source application. More users, more developer interest, more feedback from users, subset of users willing to financially support the project
Thank you for posting this. I thought it was just me.
In my case, one user actually lost access entirely to my libraries, the updated app was trying to force him to buy a personal pass, even though I have a Plex pass.
I had him reset his app and clear cache, to no avail. I ended up having to REMOVE his access to my libraries, and then reshare them to him, before he could access them again.
He was quite upset at Plex during the entire process.
Then the next day, he got this same email, and was frustrated all over again thinking he was gonna have to fight it again.
Really terrible customer service here, very sloppy. Aside from the fact that this is a greedy cash grab, it’s just being done poorly.
Jellyfin still isn’t feature packed enough for me to switch to, unfortunately.
Your users are getting that because they have a plex account that they use to stream. They might stream from just you, but they could stream from any other shared server they’re connect to. That’s why they get this email.
If you have a plex pass and are a server owner, they can ignore this and keep streaming from you for free.
If they try to stream from a server owner who does not have plex pass, it won’t work unless the user themselves have a plex watch pass, which let’s them stream from any server that doesn’t have plex pass.
Since you have plex pass, your users won’t be impacted at all.
I am very fortunate in that before Plex I found and used ps3 media server/universal media server. Because of that, it always felt odd paying just to stream my own content on my own hardware. I am certainly not against paying developers, but Plex always felt like paying for another service, not donating to an awesome Dev cause I love what they do. Another reason I stopped using Plex, I couldn’t get anyone but myself to give a dam and use Plex, (suddenly, when NETFLIX gets The Last Air Bender, NOW my sibling wants to binge watch it. 🙁). Jellyfin has served me just fine so far, it fucks up only in the same situation plex did, when I try watching with someone else.
This doesn’t really affect my household. My wife, my daughter, and I all have lifetime PlexPasses.
That said, this level of enshitification has me wishing there were options (yes I know about Emby and Jellyfin and I’ve investigated both more than once) but they have me ensnared by PlexAmp and Sonos integration. I’ve been around since before anyone had even seen the letters MP3 strung together, and I have never had a music player as capable as PlexAmp.
