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.
People are saying switch to jellyfin, which I’m all for. But you’re expecting a service which will make remote access easy like Plex ur kinda fucked.
I mean if have to set up wireguard or whatever for Jellyfin you could just do the same for Plex?
Again go to jellyfin either way, proprietary software can suck my gurl cawk, but either way you need a VPN or open ports.
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.
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.
My bad, this is all because I finally decided to purchase a lifetime pass.
In 2012 (ish), I bought a lifetime subscription for a flat $75. Over the next few years of using it, they got worse and worse with shit like this, so I switched to Emby for a bit, and then Jellyfin. I never shared with friends, tho, because I have no friends, so it was always just a pretty interface and convenience for me. Lately, I’ve just been opening the files directly in VLC, because Remmina is refusing to connect to my media server, and I can’t be arsed to figure out why.
I see some posts taking about jellyfin and tailscale and I find it interesting that it’s not mentioned tailscale is a private company. Why are they not being held to the same standard as Plex? How long before it becomes enshittified? I saw they have a free plan but give it time until they realize the number of users in the free tier are large enough to monetize.
edit: I’m prepared to be down voted but mark this and see where it ends up at.
Edit2: and I’m not defending Plex. I agree it’s a shitty move.
What was the appeal of Plex anyway?
I’m coming up on 5 years as a Plex pass owner, so my users and I will not be impacted by this change. In five more years if they asked me nicely to pay another $89 to support the service I would. Send me some stickers and put a badge on my server. I get a lot of use out of the software/service, as do my family members.
I will say, I am quite annoyed at the wording and audience of this email. Jellyfin is just not an option for me until there is excellent feature parity with Plex. I know they are a lot of Jellyfin fans here, in my opinion, Plex is a significantly better experience for me.
LOL, aren’t there at least a half dozen open source alternatives for Plex?
I’ve only ever used jellyfin and have no complaints.
I avoided plex and went with jellyfill because it’s free/libre software.
The beginning of enshittification.
Prices will keep climbing, functionality reduced in favor of service tiers, and of course ads, ads, and ads.
I’m done with Plex - They won’t get my recommendations. My holdoff buying PlexPass were the little bugs that always mattered - Pausing for more than a few minutes HARD locked up the stream, the stream had to re-init to load subtitles, and then the MAJOR issue with “What files is Plex NOT seeing” and other indexing issues. I paid for my Android app, happily. But now, telling me I can’t stream my own media, after paying for the app? Y’all can F right off with that. I’ll be finally setting up Jellyfin ASAP.
It was announced some time ago. I started using Tailscale because of that
Wonder how long those 2.99 a month figures will last. I give it a year before there’s no seperate remote streaming package and the only remaining one is >10$. The main appeal of Plex was not paying. It’s used by pirates. The goal is content for free. It’s no longer free. I don’t care at all if random people can use my Plex server. If they are unwilling to adapt to a new platform, then I guess they’ll resubscribe to Netflix. Most of them never unsubscribed from Netflix to begin with.
This was the end for me. Used Plex for almost a decade. I’m off to Jellyfin. It’s actually almost no change whatsoever to integrate it into my home setup.
Fuck them, glad I switched to Jellyfin years ago.
