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.

I dunno man, I don't care much, when Plex gets shitty enough I'll jump. But paying for the ongoing maintenance of software isn't some evil thing, even if I self host it.
But that's not what you're paying for. You're paying for access to that software...
You're not paying for software maintenance, you're paying a subscription service to a private company that has already decided to cut back on features that others also thought they were paying to maintain.
If you want to actually pay for software maintenance, migrate to Jellyfin and pay them instead, rather than filtering your payments through middle managers and shareholders first.
Problem is jellyfin (apps and server) is shit
You didn't ask, but if you've had a bad experience with the apps, you could try one of the native apps.
My friends on Apple devices think Swiftfin (https://github.com/jellyfin/Swiftfin) is much better than the normal jellyfin app.
I haven't used this one/know anyone that has: Findroid (third party) (https://github.com/jarnedemeulemeester/findroid). Mostly because I haven't had any issues with the official jellyfin app for android, but it would probably give a cleaner experience, being native and all.
For the server, I think it's fantastic. Never had any problems that weren't a few clicks to resolve. Pretty much use it and forget I'm the one maintaining it for the most part. I wonder what issues you encountered?