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submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

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.

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[-] WickedZebra66@lemmy.world 22 points 20 hours ago

Heloooooo Jellyfin!

[-] xodoh74984@lemmy.world 30 points 22 hours ago

I don't see this talked about much anymore, but the day Plex added telemetry in 2017 was the day I became five-alarm desperate for an alternative. Had to wait a 2-3 years with Plex's telemetry IP's and domains blacklisted before Jellyfin was mature enough for me to make the change.

How Plex users can be comfortable with any telemetry is beyond me.

[-] ertai@programming.dev 5 points 17 hours ago

Should have use libre software from the start my guy! Jellyfin / Kodi let's go

[-] RabbitBBQ@lemmy.world 12 points 23 hours ago

The business model here is to basically paywall one user sharing (probably) pirated content with another person?

[-] bitjunkie@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago

I can't imagine how that could go tits-up for them in court

[-] JuxtaposedJaguar@lemmy.ml 1 points 17 hours ago

I’m sure their TOU moves all risk and liability to the users, so if anyone is getting sued, it’ll be the users.

The more likely outcome is that Plex just loses most of their users, since pirates (the majority of Plex users) won’t be willing to pay to access the content they already pirated.

[-] endeavor@sopuli.xyz 30 points 1 day ago

So let me get this straight: you own the content, you host the content on your machine, you pay the electricity and internet and plex says it can't afford to let you share it to others without a subscription fee?

I mean making plex a one time fee if it's good turnkey solution is fine but subscription...

[-] Samsy@lemmy.ml 1 points 14 hours ago

As someone, who started with jellyfin, I never saw the reasons for the existence of Plex. There is no difference and people pay for it?

Hey Plex users, save your money and buy a coffee for the jellyfin team!

[-] AntiBigotBrigade@lemmy.ml 3 points 18 hours ago

"Your friends" hahaha good joke

[-] Carrot@lemmy.today 13 points 1 day ago

Been on Plex for years, I will be fully migrated to Jellyfin by the end of the week

[-] Heikki@lemm.ee 3 points 19 hours ago

How does this affect people who bought the lifetime service back in 2010?

[-] Fribbtastic@lemmy.world 3 points 19 hours ago

It doesn't, even when you share the Server, your users will be able to stream remotely.

[-] EaterOfLentils@programming.dev 19 points 1 day ago

Enshittification marches on.

[-] Qlin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 22 hours ago

Do you guys know a way on jellyfin to download media to the phone in lower quality/ less storage intense? This is the only thing I miss in my jellyfin instance

[-] yessikg 1 points 18 hours ago

There are several third-party clients that you could try, depending on which OS you are using

[-] Batman@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Not really a big deal for me but I looked around and couldn't find anything sadly. My media is generally 2k with a larger phone it hasn't hit me to hard to switch seasons in and out (as they allow bulk downloads of seasons). Certainly would be a good feature I'd say!

[-] craig9@lemm.ee 16 points 1 day ago

Ditched this crapware for Jellyfin several years ago. Glad I did. It's been great.

[-] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 day ago

I am also a Plex pass person. Multiple times over in fact. I actually have a dedicated account for my server administrator that's separate from the account I use to watch content. Both have Plex pass lifetime.

I've been familiar with this coming down the pipeline for a while and because I have Plex pass, I too, am unaffected, as are my users.

At the same time: here is a piece of software that I paid for. It's "server" software, sure, but it's just a software package. What it does isn't really relevant. The fact is that it processes data stored on my systems, processing by my systems, using my hardware, and sends that data over the Internet, using the Internet connection I pay for separately, and delivers that data directly to the people I've designated as capable of doing so.

The only part of this process that Plex, the company, has any involvement in, is limited to: issuing an SSL certificate, managing user accounts and passwords, and brokering where to find data (pointers to my systems).

You can get a free SSL certificate from let's encrypt. User accounts, authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA), is a function of pretty much everything that you remotely connect to, whether a Windows SMB/cifs share, your email, even logging into your own local computer regardless of OS..... And honestly, brokering the connection isn't dissimilar to how torrent trackers work, DNS or a goddamned IP address punched into a browser.

They're offering shockingly little for what they're asking, and the only thing that's on the list that would be costly in the slightest is having a DNS name for the server (registration of the domain, DNS services, etc). And given the scale that they're doing these things at, the individual costs per name is literally pennies per year.

This is not a good look at all.

I have domain names coming out of my ears. I'm tempted to buy one more and just offer to anyone that wants it, to have a subdomain name under that to run their Plex alternative on, so you can get a let's encrypt SSL certificate, and stay safe on the Internet. I don't want the feds snooping into what totally legal Linux ISOs are being shared.

I just don't know how to program at all, so I have no idea how I would go about setting up a system for that. The concept would be to automate it, and have people create an account, then request a DNS name under one of my DNS domains, and have a setting if you want it to have an A record, AAAA record, or cname (if you have a ddns setup). Once the request is in, it would connect to be DNS provider and add the record for you.

The part I'd want to have as a check on the system is to make sure that you're hosting jellyfin or something from the address you submit, to prevent people from using it for unrelated purposes; but even with that.... Do I care of people do that? Probably not. I would limit how many addresses you can have per account.

[-] HappyStarDiaz@real.lemmy.fan 2 points 23 hours ago

Lot of words to say you don’t know how a business works or how much it costs…

[-] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 2 points 20 hours ago

I have a very good knowledge of business operations.

They already offered Plex pass to earn their income. Plex is an extremely price elastic product, given that alternatives like jellyfin exist. They are taking features away, and charging people if they don't want to lose those features. That's a really good way to piss off your existing userbase (or customer base). Better would be to offer something new, and charge for that. Keep existing products at the same cost, but have "better" products at a premium. You won't get a huge number of people buying the extended product, but it will likely be more new paying users than how many you would get with the crap they're doing now, and they wouldn't lose any customers in the process.

When you understand the social and economic factors here, this is a super idiotic move. When you're only looking at how many dollars you can extract from the customer base, this is a golden idea.... I mean, it will fail, but it looks golden if you're only looking at the money numbers.

I would question whether you know how a business works (or whether Plex does, for that matter).

As far as I'm concerned, Plex failed to read the room. They were already walking a fine line with the people in a legal grey area, which comprised a good amount of their customer base (those that are sharing media at least). There's a nontrivial number of people who share media that are rather paranoid with reason. Nobody wants the RIAA/MPAA to have any reason to investigate what you are doing on the Internet. We all know how well that goes from the whole Napster thing. So now than a few are almost tinfoil hat level of paranoid. Many have already jumped ship to jellyfin or something similar. The rest are either unconcerned, not paying attention, or simply don't care. I would argue that the numbers of people who run servers currently that host content using Plex, that are not looking at alternatives because of this, is pretty damned low.

Plex alienated the group that brought everyone into their umbrella. When the people who host media entirely abandon their product because of this shit, their client base vaporizes.

Can't have a product or company with no clients. At least, not for long.

[-] HappyStarDiaz@real.lemmy.fan 1 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

I’ll trust my MBA and decades of industry experience over an unreasoned gut feeling of everything should be free and developers shouldn’t get paid. And please cite the data indicating the number of users who host Plex servers that are not looking for alternatives is pretty damn low. A few folks in a fediverse echo chamber does not a user base make.

I think the most salient point here is it is indeed increasingly uncomfortable to put content in a plex server due to the increasing likelihood this telemetry makes it to MPAA/RIAA types and that will definitely be a self inflicted wound from a double barreled shit shotgun for Plex.

[-] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 hour ago

I have two pieces of paper from my time in post-secondary education. One says information technology, the other says business. I've worked in an IT field for well over 10 years in a B2B capacity. I've had to handle cost/benefit and ROI arguments with customers, and justify having them spend incredible amounts for their own good.

Are we done dick measuring about what we think we know?

Listen, we're not going to agree on this. I couldn't give any fewer shits if you do or not. Bluntly, I'm unbothered.

Good day to you sir.

[-] chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I bought Plex Pass when it was $75 for the lifetime option.

I prefer Jellyfin, but sharing is harder for family members with it because I can't get them to just log in without existing credentials (Google Account, Apple ID, etc). Trying to convince my 67 year old mother-in-law to enter a URL, username, and password into an app with a remote is like asking my child to eat broccoli.

For now, I'll keep running dual stack with both. If Plex pulls lifetime passes, even though it'll be a PITA, I'll convert everyone to Jellyfin despite the pain.

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[-] Jiggle_Physics@sh.itjust.works 43 points 1 day ago

Dropped this for jellyfin years ago

[-] nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br 4 points 19 hours ago

Jellyfin users have been warning about such things for a long time, but very few actually listened. Well, here we are, hope more people migrate now

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[-] secret300@lemmy.sdf.org 72 points 1 day ago

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

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[-] SomeGuyNamedDave@lemm.ee 11 points 1 day ago

Use jellyfin, it's much better. Also do not kill Elon Musk and Donald Trump, as much as they may deserve death.

[-] endeavor@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago

2nd amendment is the only check and balance left and the idiots need to realize this within a month before it's too late.

Martial law and gestapo raids were just legalised against anyone.

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[-] dezmd@lemmy.world 53 points 1 day ago

"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.

https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/2974

[-] Absaroka@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago

Wasn't expecting to see that.

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[-] commander@lemmy.world 52 points 1 day 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

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[-] HurlingDurling@lemm.ee 17 points 1 day ago

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

[-] bktheman@awful.systems 42 points 1 day 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.

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[-] glitching@lemmy.ml 111 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days 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!

[-] HyperfocusSurfer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 hours ago

Not the brightest of those, imo: a while back they've opted their users in "discover together", which is basically sharing your watch history with your plex friends. That went over as well as you'd expect: https://www.404media.co/plex-users-fear-discover-together-week-in-review-feature-will-leak-porn-habits-to-their-friends-and-family/

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[-] butsbutts@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 day ago

thats closed software 101 now, hook us then make us pay if only there was something that was always free forever

[-] veng@lemmy.world 39 points 1 day ago

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

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this post was submitted on 01 May 2025
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