It's essentially a one time fee for an indefinite service of handling the vpn side of the setup.

I use Jellyfin on my local network and plex externally because I don't know how to route specific traffic with openvpn on my phone and can't be bothered switching it off and on when streaming things 😅

I'm not sure how it's sustainable, and am surprised they still offer the life pass at all though.

I guess a lot of people buy it who don't need it?

I still probably wouldn't pay the current price for it though, I got it about a decade ago lol.

Oh also plexamp has a better UX than jellyfin for music, but I don't think that alone would justify the current price.