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.

  • Xanza@lemm.eeEnglish
    14116·
    2 months ago

    Seems like it was only a matter of time.

    20% more will jump to Jellyfin. The other 80% will entrench and talk even more about how great Plex is. I mean Jesus, $250 to watch pirated movies. lol wtf It’s also fucking wild to me that people are defending a monetization model that is on self hosted hardware. Like, I gotta pay for my server and then a license to avoid buying DVDs. Fuck it, at this point just buy the fucking movie.

    Ya’ll are brain dead. Plex loves you tho.

  • derry@midwest.socialEnglish
    181·
    2 months ago

    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.

  • glitching@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1166·
    2 months ago

    not a plex user but someone buried the lede here… to me, this is the neon sign that screams GTFO:

    we noticed that you’ve accessed libraries in the past

    what business of yours is it to notice my private comings and goings?! what other actionable intel do y’all keep in your logs?! bye!

  • commander@lemmy.worldEnglish
    551·
    2 months ago

    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

  • Couldbealeotard@lemmy.worldEnglish
    610·
    2 months ago

    OP couldn’t comprehend an email, and when everyone tried to reassure them that nothing for them has changed they doubled down. The closest thing to justification I can figure is “all my clients are borderline illiterate as well and it upset them”.

    How in the world could you be upset that a product you already paid for is not providing that specific feature for free anymore. They’ve even made the phone software free!

  • hoefnix@lemmy.worldEnglish
    81·
    2 months ago

    Indeed, no need to have Plex anymore. Will probably set up a family VPN and we can all stream directly from my harddrives, bandwidth is not an issue anyway.

  • veng@lemmy.worldEnglish
    39·
    2 months ago

    My bad, this is all because I finally decided to purchase a lifetime pass.

    • GissaMittJobb@lemmy.mlEnglish
      173·
      2 months ago

      Jellyfin is better anyway

      I wish this were true, but as a multi-year Plex-to-Jellyfin migrant, I have to point out that Plex was the better software.

      I still choose to run Jellyfin for other reasons (don’t like the commercial path Plex is taking, among others), but I still do miss the better reliability and larger feature set in the Plex software stack.

    • legion02@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4511·
      2 months ago

      Doesn’t jellyfin just not do this at all? Like if you want to stream remotely you need to figure out a vpn solution to do it?

      • merthyr1831@lemmy.mlEnglish
        4·
        2 months ago

        I use a non-rooted docker, reverse proxy, and cloudfare domain. I know Jellyfin has some API security issues but I’m still unconvinced that any of them can be used to escalate to any level that would threaten my server (or even my instance of Jellyfin).

      • charles@lemmy.caEnglish
        2112·
        2 months ago

        You’re 100% correct. I always find it funny how hardcore some people are with jellyfin vs Plex. I’ll probably end up getting downvotes on this but imo Plex is way simpler to setup and keep running, and as a lifetime pass owner, I’ve very rarely felt like my experience has been deteriorated by any of the changes that the jellyfin crowd freaks out about. Plus plexamp is honestly such a great music player. I’ll happily keep running Plex for the foreseeable future.

      • themachine@lemmy.worldEnglish
        42·
        2 months ago

        No. You have to expose your server to the internet in some way bit you don’t have to set up some sort of VPN. There are plenty of people who will tell you how awful of an idea it is but if you make smart choices it’s not a big deal.

      • Semperverus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        251·
        2 months ago

        You can stream remotely via jellyfin if you expose your server to the internet. VPN is safer but not the only option.

      • CmdrShepard42@lemm.eeEnglish
        7·
        2 months ago

        Not necessarily a VPN but you’re 100% on your own for security. When i used to run Emby, I had a white-list IPs but this doesn’t work great since most ISPs rotate IPs over time and if you’re on wireless it could change all the time.

        • themachine@lemmy.worldEnglish
          185·
          2 months ago

          That is not correct. A VPN would be one method but you can also just expose the service to the internet in a number of ways and accomplish the same thing Plex provides.

          • mobotsar@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            22·
            2 months ago

            You probably shouldn’t just expose jellyfin to the internet quite yet though. There are some ongoing efforts to fix unauthenticated endpoint problems.

          • sudneo@lemm.eeEnglish
            31·
            2 months ago

            Not to be “achtuallying” bit VPN is not a way to remote stream, it’s a way to bring remote clients in the local network.

            Likewise exposing services on the internet…not really going to happen esepcially for people - like me - that run plex/jellyfin on their NAS.

            I don’t have a horse in this race, i don’t use remote streaming, I only ever streamed from my nas to my 2 TVs, and I am experimenting with jellyfin. But for those who do need remote streaming, jellyfin is going to be problematic.

  • rhacer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    162·
    2 months ago

    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.

  • bktheman@awful.systemsEnglish
    454·
    2 months ago

    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.

  • Sinirlan@lemmy.world
    English
    6·
    2 months ago

    I’ve used it briefly in the past but with all the streaming services popping up and prices going up I thought it will be a matter of time for Plex to follow suit. So I moved to Jellyfin and never looked back. I kept account (ok I forgot about it) but when I saw that email today in my mailbox I just logged in and deleted it.