this post was submitted on 01 May 2025

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1146

That's all folks, Plex is starting to charge for sharing (poptalk.scrubbles.tech)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

600 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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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[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 hours ago (9 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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 hours ago (4 children)

better computer literacy is always better
mas adoption -> more contributing -> more features like "share with friends"

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

You can use a VPS to make it accessible without VPN via the internet: https://codeberg.org/skjalli/jellyfin-vps-setup

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Oh yeah no you can rent out a vps and use it as a VPN/router appliance. I've done that before for other projects, just figured it seemed a lil overkill here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

I use tailscale for accessing my home network remotely, it was a super easy setup

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

This doesn't really affect my household. My wife, my daughter, and I all have lifetime PlexPasses.

That said, this level of enshitification has me wishing there were options (yes I know about Emby and Jellyfin and I've investigated both more than once) but they have me ensnared by PlexAmp and Sonos integration. I've been around since before anyone had even seen the letters MP3 strung together, and I have never had a music player as capable as PlexAmp.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

Plexamp is honestly amazing. I'm investigating finamp, but I know it won't be as nice. Them killing off the tidal integration did help the decision a bit though

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I strongly recommend symfonium on android. Plexamp is a really polished app but I found the handling of downloaded files quite poor, I don't think you can even search downloads when you're offline? (other bonus to symfonium is it supports jellyfin and sources, in case you were to ever fully move away from plex)

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago

The tidal thing didn't bother me, as my music collection is relatively large. But yeah PlexAmp is truly an extraordinary bit of software.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 9 hours ago (5 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

Same

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

In 2012 (ish), I bought a lifetime subscription for a flat $75. Over the next few years of using it, they got worse and worse with shit like this, so I switched to Emby for a bit, and then Jellyfin. I never shared with friends, tho, because I have no friends, so it was always just a pretty interface and convenience for me. Lately, I've just been opening the files directly in VLC, because Remmina is refusing to connect to my media server, and I can't be arsed to figure out why.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (2 children)

Your users are getting that because they have a plex account that they use to stream. They might stream from just you, but they could stream from any other shared server they're connect to. That's why they get this email.

If you have a plex pass and are a server owner, they can ignore this and keep streaming from you for free.

If they try to stream from a server owner who does not have plex pass, it won't work unless the user themselves have a plex watch pass, which let's them stream from any server that doesn't have plex pass.

Since you have plex pass, your users won't be impacted at all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

It's a very confusing and poorly worded email. My users were equally confused. Not everyone is techy or even deeply aware of how Plex even works. Nor should they be expected to.

The message was designed to confuse and extract money from people who don't know better. It's trashy and they should be ashamed.

That said, I'm still using Plex for the time being.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 hours ago

I am very fortunate in that before Plex I found and used ps3 media server/universal media server. Because of that, it always felt odd paying just to stream my own content on my own hardware. I am certainly not against paying developers, but Plex always felt like paying for another service, not donating to an awesome Dev cause I love what they do. Another reason I stopped using Plex, I couldn't get anyone but myself to give a dam and use Plex, (suddenly, when NETFLIX gets The Last Air Bender, NOW my sibling wants to binge watch it. 🙁). Jellyfin has served me just fine so far, it fucks up only in the same situation plex did, when I try watching with someone else.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (15 children)

I see some posts taking about jellyfin and tailscale and I find it interesting that it's not mentioned tailscale is a private company. Why are they not being held to the same standard as Plex? How long before it becomes enshittified? I saw they have a free plan but give it time until they realize the number of users in the free tier are large enough to monetize.

edit: I'm prepared to be down voted but mark this and see where it ends up at.

Edit2: and I'm not defending Plex. I agree it's a shitty move.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

Tailscale and Netbird are foss software so they can always be forked. There are also. alternatives like Wireguard and Hyperspace. (Never tried hyperspace)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

I'm very much with you.

Never understood why Plex, a once open source fork of XBMC, was seen as a positive thing when they switched to the closed source, SaaS model.

I also don't understand the love for Tailscale when Wireguard exists.

But, anyway, the same people who are reacting shocked to Plex can be shocked when Tailscale does the same.

They'll probably hop on Discord to vent their frustrations before there, too, they find themselves spurred by a company with no clear plan on monetization finding out that offering hosted services at a yearly loss can only exist for so long.

Open source isn't just about idealogy, it's about longevity for software that can't be clearly monetized - harken back to "amazing" services like Keybase that worked great for a few years until their VCs started asking for return of investment.

Use the shit that was made for you, not to exploit you. And if that shit isn't up to your standard, learn to contribute, or just enjoy the corporate graveyard in which you choose to live.

(so sorry for the pseudo-unhinged rant, but between the recent Win11, Discord controversies - and now, this - I'm just fed up with all the shocked_pikachu.jpg posts I'm seeing on Lemmy)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 hours ago

I have definitely seen worries about tailscale in other threads related to a recent VC funding round, I suppose they haven't aggressively started the enshittification journey (yet), and it is also a bonus that most of tailscale is open source, e.g. headscale exists.

If tailscale started reducing the free service # of devices/users to push people towards their paid 'personal plus' plan then maybe we'd see a similar backlash. I say this as a tailscale user myself.