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.

  • bktheman@awful.systems
    English
    443·
    1 day ago

    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.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techOPEnglish
      121·
      1 day ago

      I’m glad I’m not the only one. I’m getting a lot of vitriol here from people saying “Well your users are idiots”, or other angry things. No, my users are family members, and not everyone needs a degree in CS to be able to connect to a Plex server. A few of them are elderly. The email was misleading to them, on purpose. It threw many of them into a flurry. The whole thing was handled terribly by a company who keeps going out of their way to make it difficult for them already to simply watch my server.

      I’d suggest trying Jellyfin out again. Personally I was in the same boat even just over a year ago, I wasn’t impressed, but it’s come a long way. It’s absolutely not as polished as Plex, but if you can look past that I’m finding most of the features I need are there.

      • bktheman@awful.systems
        English
        4·
        1 day ago

        Yeah, odd response from this community. Entirely unexpected.

        I plan on looking into it again, if nothing else than to have a backup when Plex finally does completely crap the bed.

        Which I agree, this is pretty close, but I’m not there yet.

        I’m glad you posted this because I thought I was alone too, I searched for and didn’t find anyone with this problem. Almost made a post here, but decided I didn’t want the abuse haha.

    • ricardofcf@lemmy.ptEnglish
      10·
      1 day ago

      I find the server part of Jellyfin to work pretty well and I love that it provides some features you would have to pay to get on Plex (skip intro/credits for instance). The clients on the other hand, specially for tvOS and the fact that you can’t install it from the store on Samsung TVs, are really what’s making it difficult for me to switch.

      • phx@lemmy.caEnglish
        2·
        1 day ago

        Yeah it “works” on LG TVs but only if I don’t use SSL, possibly due to the (perfectly valid) LetsEncrypt certificate in my case.

        That’s not a huge deal for my LAN access but it’s still pretty dumb. It would be nice if more devices properly supported it.

      • bktheman@awful.systems
        English
        1·
        1 day ago

        That’s good to hear. I honestly haven’t tried it yet, I need to. The problem is exposing it to the Internet without a VPN.

        Clients don’t concern me, from what I understand it works on Roku and you can stream from your phone to a Chromecast, that’s all my users need.

        I refuse to use any TVs built in smart features 🤷‍♂️

      • bktheman@awful.systems
        English
        1·
        11 hours ago

        Remote access, primarily.

        And not with a VPN, but properly exposed to the Internet. I’m learning now that it can be done, just has to be done carefully. It’s on my list of things to look into.

    • boonhet@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      1 day ago

      What’s missing from Jellyfin for you?

      I’m going to migrate over soon personally. I canceled my plex pass instead of upgrading to lifetime a few months ago because I felt like Plex was going to go down enshittification alley soon. I haven’t used Jellyfin much though, so not sure what to expect at this point. I don’t have a lot of users luckily

      • bktheman@awful.systems
        English
        2·
        1 day ago

        Public exposure to the Internet without needing tailscale or a VPN. I keep hearing mixed opinions on whether it’s recommended or not.

        I’m not afraid of configuring it, reverse proxy and all that. I just want it to be secure, and I keep getting mixed signals.

        For now I’ll keep dealing with Plex, but eventually I’m sure I’ll need to figure out a solution using jellyfin.

        • Trainguyrom@reddthat.comEnglish
          2·
          1 day ago

          Personally, I think setting up a reverse proxy for accessing Jellyfin would be fine, just make sure you’ve got your firewall setup accordingly to limit exposure should someone gain access to the container/VM running Jellyfin

        • boonhet@lemm.eeEnglish
          3·
          1 day ago

          Ah, personally I just figured I’d use wireguard. I have few enough users that a bit of setup isn’t a huge issue. No way I’d want to expose it completely publicly, same with any other home servers I run.

          The public availability without open ports is indeed a strength of Plex.

      • bktheman@awful.systems
        English
        1·
        11 hours ago

        I haven’t used jellyfin, only Plex. I hear they are similar in features, with Plex pulling ahead both in features and polish, as well as the variety of apps that can access it.

        Jellyfins main problem, for me, is its lack of easy remote access. Lots of configuring to do to make it work safely, or safe but clunky to use with a VPN.