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.
YES JELLYFIN! Thank you Plex for enshitifying!
And how are you doing remote streaming from friends with Jellyfin?
I'm not personally. I'd run a VPN for others to connect in. Apparently a lot of folks just expose it to the internet and then enforce logins.
Using a VPN would be local streaming with Plex, too. The new rules wouldn't apply then.
I'm no expert but I was never able to connect to Plex if the host was running a VPN which caused me a ton of issues until I figured out split tunneling.
If the host is on a VPN then you need access to that VPN to be able to access Plex.
Gross
My whole family streams from my brother's server hundreds of km away...
Reverse proxy + fail2ban
I'm doing it with a jellyfin client to my friend's jellyfin server.
Give them the address of the server?
My mom streams mine across an ocean.
I was forcing VPN for a couple years but I've just recently started allowlisting client IPs instead. Not as good but definitely easier.
Tailscale.
you can add 3 friends on the free tier of tailscale. might work for some people but others might have to pay for tailscale.
does anyone know is it possible to get around issue by running headscale yourself? can you add as many friends as you like then? maybe something like netbird might be a better option since its fully self hosted?
Its a lot simpler then that. Dont add them to your tailscale account. Each user should have there own tailscale account. Then you just send them a link to share your machine (your server) with their tailnet. Then all of there devices they have added on their account can access your server.
Bonus: send them referrals and you get your device limit increased when they make a account. Which all they have to do is sign in with their google or apple account.
The same way you’d set up remote plex.
Plex will have some cost associated with remote streaming, so I don’t see any issue with them charging for that.
If people don’t want to pay then they should just set it up themselves, like they would have to do with jellyfin anyways.
No it's not the same as with Plex because they have their own security solution and authentication servers. With Jellyfin that's completely on you to figure out and doing it wrong (exposing open ports to the open internet) can have terrible consequences.
I do agree that it's not a huge deal to buy a lifetime Plex Pass as a server owner though. I've had my issues with Plex over the last decade but it's a hell of a lot more polished than the competition and it's extremely easy to share with all my friends and family who don't know shit about computers or other tech related subjects.
@ifItWasUpToMe @ripcord I'm not sure if I'm understanding. What costs are there to plex remote streaming? The streaming aspect is coming directly from my plex server public IP. I know there is some option that proxies the traffic through their servers but this isn't enabled by default.
The Plex Relay is enabled by default and is used anytime people can't directly connect to your server like if your port forwarding is screwed up.
Mainly STUN and TURN servers to allow NAT traversal without having to configure port forwarding and leave your server exposed to the internet.
It’ll use those servers to setup a peer-to-peer connection which at that point you are streaming directly to clients.
If you want to setup a VPN for your users, or open/forward public ports to your server then you do not need to pay.
Do you have a source for this claim that the new pricing scheme only applies to the Plex Relays? As far as I can tell it applies to anything they consider "remote access", regardless of whether it goes through their servers or not.
I don’t have a source but if you setup a VPN to your home there’s no way plex could know that you aren’t actually home. So as long as local streaming works, then streaming over VPN would work as well.
Similar thing with port forwarding on your router, except it’s much worse for security.
Be that as it may, the Plex official guide for setting up "remote streaming" walks you through port forwarding. That implies that when they say remote streaming, they mean port forwarding by default. I then had to go digging to find mention of the Relay service which seems to be a fallback. (Apparently it isn't even supported by all clients)
Surely if they meant they'd start charging for Relays they'd mention that explicitly, and not use the term "remote streaming"?
Quickly now, make jellyfin better!
Here's Jellyfin's 'How to Contribute' page.