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.
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"?