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.
And now OP is saying that he's switching to Jellfin and thinks that all of his borderline illiterate "clients" will be ok with using a VPN to access Jellyfin, if their device even has Jellyfin lol.
Also the way that OP says "users" and "clients" makes it pretty clear that he is charging people for access to his library. He is ok with making money off Plex's work, but hates the idea of Plex making money.
I'm just curious, why are you so vehemently defending a shitty move by a corporation? No matter how you tackle the issue, taking away a function that used to be free and evidently has no costs associated to the corp is a textbook example of enshittification.
It is pretty damn obvious how this will continue.
I'm almost certain it'a troll, maybe even a previously banned one. Given their username it would be very ironic otherwise, considering that, so far, in the week they created the accounyt, hey only commented to rail against things that respect user freedom.
Dollars to donuts it's the corpo-fascist "tread on me harder, daddy" version of "freedom" they're advocating for.
"Shitty move by a corporation"? You mean requiring the person that's using their flagship all encompassing flagship software product to pay a one off fee? A one off fee that seemingly most people who host a Plex server already bought?
Software costs money to make and maintain. You're not entitled to it for free. Plex's software is legitimately great and is the only software on the market that does what it does and makes it as easy as it is.
As has been pointed out many times in here, this is wrong. Plex have hardware that is used when many, probably most, people stream remotely. Also developers cost money to employ. Developers make the software that is regularly updated. They deserve to be paid, don't they?
So you agree the same thing will happen to JellyFin then, right? So why even bother getting Jellyfin set up now when it will inevitably happen there too?
First of all, I don't have a horse in this race. My media is stored locally and used only by my household. I really don't give a shit if a corporation needs more revenue to satisfy their infinite growthTM.
My issue is with how they are doing it. Provide an extra service or function, introduce a higher tier with priority treatment or so. Thats fine with me.
What's not fine is taking something away people used to get for free, because the shitty venture capital business model isn't feasible and only provided these things to capture the market, and now comes the nickel and diming part of providing ever fewer services and functions for ever increasing amounts of money.
As for jellyfin, thats open source AFAIK. So why even mention that here as some sort of gotcha? If it enshittifies people will fork it and move on.
They are providing extra service. Using Plex on mobile is now free for everyone, which is a huge step forward. It's not a bad trade off for server owners to require Plex pass for remote viewing (which is only necessary if you're not using a VPN like tailscale for free remote viewing).
I don't get why people are freaking out over a one off fee to unlock something that has running costs for Plex, which itself isn't necessary if you just opt for a free VPN client like tailscale.
Oh so they don't deserve to be paid for their work, the only reason they'd be after money is for "infinite growthTM"?
I agree that's never good, but what's the alternative? Go out of business? Insert ads into your streaming of local content? Another way rip look at it is that they’ve been giving away their product for free due the last 10+ years that they should have been charging for.
I mention JellyFin because at some stage it will become a business and they'll start charging too, or it will get left behind because it's free. People can fork all they want, but businesses that provide services can't do so for free for eternity.
Is there even anyone that runs a plex server who doesn't have a lifetime plex pass these days? I’ve had one for 10+ years at this stage. I bought it to support the devs as they made this amazing software that I’ve used for probably hundreds of thousands of hours of streaming from my server. I paid like $100. I pay less than that much in 1 month to my ISP.
IMO it’s a fair change, because the product has always been worthy of being a paid product.
People are free to go elsewhere, but they’ll quickly realize that the one off plex pass price is cheap for what you get.
Opinion of 1 Jellyfin programmer
Citation needed.
What do you mean left behind? By who? Anyway, what's wrong with being left behind?
We're not beholden to anyone. We're not in competition with anyone. We're not in a race, so I don't understand how we could get left behind.
We'll keep doing what we do with the amazing team of people who volunteer their time, and other solutions can do whatever they want to do, I don't care because, again, it's not a competition!
Why are you skipping over the alternative venues of revenue I suggested that wouldn't be as problematic? Because without you couldn't paint me as irrational, asking the poor corpo to not make more money than last quarter at their customers expense 😔
They can pay their employees just fine. They do this because the investors want their returns.
Adding extra tiers that only the people who already bought a Plex pass would buy? If you run a Plex server and haven’t got a Plex pass by now, you were never going to unless they did what they’re doing now, as it’s basically feature complete.
You don’t really seem to understand that businesses need revenue and profit to survive, publicly traded or private. You’d rather see Plex die than have their most hardcore users have to pay a tiny fee?