this post was submitted on 01 May 2025

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

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

660 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] 6 points 19 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] 12 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

What was the appeal of Plex anyway?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

It has been a few years since I last used Plex but I always liked their interface, their tech stack is fairly modern, they have apps for pretty much every device, their title matching for content works really well and there was not much wrong with it back in the day other than it lacking local authentication.

I switched over long ago when they started pushing streaming services to my users that I couldn't deactivate server side.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago

Once you invite an MBA in you can never uninvite them…

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 day ago (5 children)

I don't use Plex. I have never used Plex. But based on the one time I tried, this doesn't surprise me even a little bit.

Years ago I installed it on my NAS, it was a one click download package. I installed it and hit the button to set it up. And then it prompted me to make a cloud account.

Why do I need a cloud account? I am logging into my local server and I am not sharing anything with anybody nor am I subscribing to any cloud services. I have no need of a cloud account. But, the way they built the thing, you need a cloud account to log into your local system.

I did not create a cloud account. I uninstalled it. I concluded that a company that claims to care about user privacy, but requires cloud integration in an area that absolutely does not require cloud anything, does not actually give a shit about privacy. I Googled and found that the requirement for a cloud account was, at the time, a fairly new thing. Lots of people didn't like it. I concluded that this company was beginning to enshittify, although this was years ago and none of us had heard that word yet. But either way, it was obvious that the company was moving in a not customer-friendly direction and I did not want to be along for the ride.

My choice has been proven right several times over the years since. And yes, every time they remove a feature, or make some other customer unfriendly decision, I retell this story.

The moral here is that a company either cares about its customers or it doesn't, and it's usually pretty easy to tell which one fairly quickly. When one bad decision is made, and not corrected, others will follow.

Synology is the latest example of that. For anyone not paying attention, they have recently announced that their 2025 series units will only work with Synology branded hard drives, which are of course more expensive than standard Seagate or Western Digital drives (which work just fine). But if you look, the bread crumbs are there and form a trail. Over the last few years they have removed features, for example the device is no longer can decode h.265 surveillance video, and the units will no longer display SMART data for 'unsupported' drives. I say no longer because they used to, but an update changed that so they no longer do.

Bottom line though is don't do business with companies that don't respect you.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

LOL, aren't there at least a half dozen open source alternatives for Plex?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 hours ago

Some pretty easy work arounds.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (2 children)

Wonder how long those 2.99 a month figures will last. I give it a year before there's no seperate remote streaming package and the only remaining one is >10$. The main appeal of Plex was not paying. It's used by pirates. The goal is content for free. It's no longer free. I don't care at all if random people can use my Plex server. If they are unwilling to adapt to a new platform, then I guess they'll resubscribe to Netflix. Most of them never unsubscribed from Netflix to begin with.

This was the end for me. Used Plex for almost a decade. I'm off to Jellyfin. It's actually almost no change whatsoever to integrate it into my home setup.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 22 hours ago

I'm done with Plex - They won't get my recommendations. My holdoff buying PlexPass were the little bugs that always mattered - Pausing for more than a few minutes HARD locked up the stream, the stream had to re-init to load subtitles, and then the MAJOR issue with "What files is Plex NOT seeing" and other indexing issues. I paid for my Android app, happily. But now, telling me I can't stream my own media, after paying for the app? Y'all can F right off with that. I'll be finally setting up Jellyfin ASAP.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Welcome to jellyfin!

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[–] [email protected] 156 points 1 day ago (54 children)

Lol "Your Friends at Plex"

get fucked, assholes, Jellyfin is better anyway

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[–] [email protected] -2 points 10 hours ago

I feel like people getting mad at this shit don't even use plex. I run my server on lifetime pass. Have it on my Nas with overseer, radarr, sonarr, all that shit. Just a couple of months of not having subscriptions for me and my family pays for plex. If you log on plex once a month this shit ain't for you to worry about.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 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] 4 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

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] 208 points 1 day ago (59 children)

I never got the idea of selfhosting but paying (except for enterprise-grade support or donations) anyway.

[–] [email protected] 167 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (49 children)

You know all the certs and security and port stuff you need to do? Plex does that. You just download the app, point it at your folders with media, and you’re all set both at your home and beyond it. There is no self hosted solution that is that turnkey. I really don’t understand how so many people don’t see the appeal of that. It makes quasi-selfhosting possible for people with far less technical knowledge than those of us here.

I could write a less than one page bullet point instruction and virtually anyone who knows how to work a desktop computer could get a server up and running in one or two hours tops. If they have any computer experience, more like 30 minutes.

What’s more, people with literally no computer knowledge can easily open the app and watch your stuff. They just make an account, download the app, and they’re off to the races. TV, tablet, doesn’t matter. There is no self hosted solution that is nearly as streamlined as Plex. I say this as somebody who likes jellyfin a lot. They are completely different experiences that require completely different levels of knowledge