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Plex is locking remote streaming behind a subscription in April (www.plex.tv)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.

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[–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

If you want free, there are alternatives. Plex is a business, with employees. Plex pass is their business model.

I think locking remote play is entirely enshitification however, but I get it. Plex model has them provide authentication and relay services. They are now trying to push their own streaming services which I expect is a real money sink.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago*

    I actually jumped ship a while back. I agree that Plex is a business and they do deserve to get paid for development and infrastructure costs, but it's the blatant enshitification that I have a big issue with.

    They chose to lock a previously-free feature behind a paywall for everybody and asked for even more money to get it back. The less shitty alternative would have been to ask only the users who needed to use the relays to purchase a Plex Pass. Or, if they wanted to make it seem like a positive thing, they could have made the new subscription into an "enhanced quality" remote streaming experience that enabled higher bitrates over relays.

    They gave their users the middle finger by picking the most transparently greedy option that they could get away with justifying.

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