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.
Take HomeAssistant for example: you’re free to use it self-hosted, but as soon as you want to expose it securely through the Internet, there’s need for infrastructure that has costs, both in materials and labor. In HomeAssistant’s case, it’s NabuCasa that does it, and costs money, and helps fund the work of HomeAssistant’s developers.
Having things free (libre) and open source is a blessing, but we have become used, entitled, even spoiled, to enjoy the work of very specialized people for free. That’s not always feasible.
Another example, Zabbix, is totally open source and free, they only charge for support and training if you ask for them. It has worked for them for many years, but if they start to struggle with funding, I’d understand if they charged for it.
Home Assistant doesn't require to pay for anything at any point in time for any reason. If you want to expose your instance to the web, they have all the documents on how to do it yourself. There's absolutely nothing "hidden" behind a paywall. The only reason to say is if you want Nabu Casa to handle exposing your instance to the internet and various cloud services like Google Assistant/Alexa. The reason to pay Nabu Casa is if you don't have the technical know how (or lazy like me) and to help fund Home Assistant (which I want).
That's all to say that Plex and Home Assistant are not similar in their pay scheme. It'd be more akin if Jellyfin started charging users to allow a one click way to stream outside the home with no obligation to.