this post was submitted on 01 May 2025
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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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[–] 30p87@feddit.org 220 points 3 weeks ago (48 children)

I never got the idea of selfhosting but paying (except for enterprise-grade support or donations) anyway.

[–] 9point6@lemmy.world 59 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

For a good while, Plex was the only game in town that did the job well, and they put the transcoding feature behind the paywall.

Given it wasn't that expensive for a lifetime pass a number of years ago (I remember it was cheaper than a game anyway) and they still seemed relatively user-centric at the time, many people like me felt like they were supporting developers building something that was useful to us.

I still run my Plex server since it's not really costing me not to, but I've been running Jellyfin too for a little while and it more or less can do the same job these days

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[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 37 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

In the case of plex, it's not 100% selfhosted. There's a dependence on plexs public infrastructure for user management/authentication. They also help bypass NAT by proxying connections through their servers so you don't have to setup port forwarding and can even easily escape double NAT situations.

I can understand paying for that convenience, but cost keeps rising while previously free features continue to get locked behind paywalls.

Tbh, having users required to authenticate with plex.tv was enough for me to look elsewhere. The biggest reason to self host for me is to remove dependency on public services.

[–] deegeese@sopuli.xyz 25 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

The central user management is not a feature, it’s a hook to force people to pay for self-hosted software.

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[–] SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 174 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

Lol "Your Friends at Plex"

get fucked, assholes, Jellyfin is better anyway

[–] legion02@lemmy.world 34 points 3 weeks ago (41 children)

Doesn't jellyfin just not do this at all? Like if you want to stream remotely you need to figure out a vpn solution to do it?

[–] semperverus@lemmy.world 24 points 3 weeks ago (9 children)

You can stream remotely via jellyfin if you expose your server to the internet. VPN is safer but not the only option.

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[–] Xanza@lemm.ee 127 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (27 children)

Seems like it was only a matter of time.

20% more will jump to Jellyfin. The other 80% will entrench and talk even more about how great Plex is. I mean Jesus, $250 to watch pirated movies. lol wtf It's also fucking wild to me that people are defending a monetization model that is on self hosted hardware. Like, I gotta pay for my server and then a license to avoid buying DVDs. Fuck it, at this point just buy the fucking movie.

Ya'll are brain dead. Plex loves you tho.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 23 points 3 weeks ago (20 children)

Yup, read through this thread and it becomes clearer and clearer. and trust me, I've been a long time hold out, I've been through this many times - but this is the first time I've seen functionality removed from Plex to be put behind a paywall. And doing a price hike at the same time. Absolutely shitty. I've already migrated off.

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[–] drspod@lemmy.ml 119 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

Trying to monetize the piracy of your users. That's a bold business strategy.

Look, I know a lot of people could be using the sharing feature to share material that is in the public domain or that they own the copyright to, but let's be honest: most of that sharing would be considered an "unlicensed public performance" by the MAFIAA.

[–] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 70 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

They sold to private equity a couple years back. The enshittification started that day.

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[–] glitching@lemmy.ml 111 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

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!

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[–] shan23@lemmy.world 89 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Guess it’s time to start using jellyfin and contributing

[–] cellardoor@lemmy.world 31 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

JellyFin is fantastic software and I have no complaints.

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[–] secret300@lemmy.sdf.org 71 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

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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[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 71 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
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[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 60 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Exhibit #46,853 for why freeware will inevitably fall out from under your feet and why you should exclusively use FOSS wherever possible.

EDIT: Here's Jellyfin's 'How to Contribute' page.

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[–] dezmd@lemmy.world 55 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

"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 23 points 2 weeks ago

Wasn't expecting to see that.

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[–] commander@lemmy.world 54 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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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[–] HulkSmashBurgers@reddthat.com 54 points 3 weeks ago (10 children)

I've only ever used jellyfin and have no complaints.

I avoided plex and went with jellyfill because it's free/libre software.

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[–] ozoned@lemmy.world 50 points 3 weeks ago (26 children)

YES JELLYFIN! Thank you Plex for enshitifying!

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[–] Jiggle_Physics@sh.itjust.works 47 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

Dropped this for jellyfin years ago

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[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 46 points 3 weeks ago (15 children)

I got the same email.

I haven't had plex installed for over 7 years, and I've NEVER used the shared libraries feature.

We noticed that you’ve accessed libraries from friends and family in the past

They've apparently noticed activity that's never occurred.

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[–] bktheman@awful.systems 41 points 2 weeks ago (15 children)

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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[–] SirEDCaLot 39 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

I don't use Plex. I have never used Plex. But based on the one time I tried, this doesn't surprise me even a little bit.

Years ago I installed it on my NAS, it was a one click download package. I installed it and hit the button to set it up. And then it prompted me to make a cloud account.

Why do I need a cloud account? I am logging into my local server and I am not sharing anything with anybody nor am I subscribing to any cloud services. I have no need of a cloud account. But, the way they built the thing, you need a cloud account to log into your local system.

I did not create a cloud account. I uninstalled it. I concluded that a company that claims to care about user privacy, but requires cloud integration in an area that absolutely does not require cloud anything, does not actually give a shit about privacy. I Googled and found that the requirement for a cloud account was, at the time, a fairly new thing. Lots of people didn't like it. I concluded that this company was beginning to enshittify, although this was years ago and none of us had heard that word yet. But either way, it was obvious that the company was moving in a not customer-friendly direction and I did not want to be along for the ride.

My choice has been proven right several times over the years since. And yes, every time they remove a feature, or make some other customer unfriendly decision, I retell this story.

The moral here is that a company either cares about its customers or it doesn't, and it's usually pretty easy to tell which one fairly quickly. When one bad decision is made, and not corrected, others will follow.

Synology is the latest example of that. For anyone not paying attention, they have recently announced that their 2025 series units will only work with Synology branded hard drives, which are of course more expensive than standard Seagate or Western Digital drives (which work just fine). But if you look, the bread crumbs are there and form a trail. Over the last few years they have removed features, for example the device is no longer can decode h.265 surveillance video, and the units will no longer display SMART data for 'unsupported' drives. I say no longer because they used to, but an update changed that so they no longer do.

Bottom line though is don't do business with companies that don't respect you.

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[–] veng@lemmy.world 39 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

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

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[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 39 points 3 weeks ago (9 children)

So as long as the server owner has Plex pass everyone's still able to stream from the server?

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[–] endeavor@sopuli.xyz 38 points 2 weeks 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...

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 37 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

"your friends"

dude my friends don't charge me for shit

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[–] WickedZebra66@lemmy.world 35 points 2 weeks ago

Heloooooo Jellyfin!

[–] Alph4d0g@discuss.tchncs.de 35 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

Jellyfin. Tailscale. Bob's your uncle.

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[–] xodoh74984@lemmy.world 35 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] ClemaX@lemm.ee 34 points 3 weeks ago

Fuck them, glad I switched to Jellyfin years ago.

[–] Steve@startrek.website 33 points 3 weeks ago

Friendship ended with plex, jellyfin is new best friend.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 30 points 3 weeks ago (21 children)

Playon, Evernote, Lastpass, there have been plenty of examples.

Whenever a company starts charging for previously free features, it's time to GTFO, even if you're on their pay side.

I've got lifetime Plexpass, but I can read the writing on the wall. It's only a matter of time before they enshittify my product or stop providing updates. They'll sunset Plex and start Plex+ or some shit, give em a year or so.

Get your Jellyfin installed and working, they can work beside each other. Tailscale if it's just you, reverse proxy if you have the fam on in.

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[–] magic_smoke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 26 points 3 weeks ago (36 children)

People are saying switch to jellyfin, which I'm all for. But you're expecting a service which will make remote access easy like Plex ur kinda fucked.

I mean if have to set up wireguard or whatever for Jellyfin you could just do the same for Plex?

Again go to jellyfin either way, proprietary software can suck my gurl cawk, but either way you need a VPN or open ports.

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[–] PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 23 points 3 weeks ago (24 children)

This was announced several months ago

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[–] melmi@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 3 weeks ago (13 children)

It seems like multiple things are being conflated here and I'm not sure what the reality is because I've never used Plex.

Some people claim this has something to do with Plex needing to pay for NAT traversal infrastructure. Okay, that seems sort of silly but at least there's the excuse that their servers are involved in the streaming somehow.

But their wording is very broad, just calling it "remote streaming." That led me to this article on the Plex support website, which walks people through setting up port forwarding in order to enable "remote streaming"! So that excuse doesn't really seem to hold water. What exactly is being paid for here then? How do they define what "local streaming" is?

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[–] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 22 points 3 weeks ago

As long as the library owner has a Plex Pass nothing changes for ANYONE who is streaming from that Plex Server.

[–] EaterOfLentils@programming.dev 22 points 2 weeks ago

Enshittification marches on.

[–] cantankerous_cashew@lemmy.world 21 points 3 weeks ago

It was only a matter of time. Plex is a Series C startup, employs 100+ people, and has taken substantial VC investment. Those investors are expecting exponential returns, and a "one-time lifetime payment" will never sustain that sort of growth

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