this post was submitted on 01 May 2025
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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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[–] SomeGuyNamedDave@lemm.ee 5 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Use jellyfin, it's much better. Also do not kill Elon Musk and Donald Trump, as much as they may deserve death.

[–] Jiggle_Physics@sh.itjust.works 38 points 17 hours ago (3 children)

Dropped this for jellyfin years ago

[–] fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

What's the jellyfin experience like nowadays?

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[–] andybytes@programming.dev 5 points 15 hours ago

Same. Plex is wack

[–] JigglySackles@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I've had them side by side in preparation for this day.

[–] Jiggle_Physics@sh.itjust.works 6 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Us jigglers tend to prefer jelly

[–] JigglySackles@lemmy.world 5 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Indeed we do. Big fan of your work btw.

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[–] HurlingDurling@lemm.ee 17 points 15 hours ago

Uninstalled. I don't mind as much for sharing my library but if I have to pay to stream MY OWN SERVERS CONTENT using your service, that's a hard pass. My homes all use jellyfin now

[–] butsbutts@lemmy.ml 10 points 14 hours ago

thats closed software 101 now, hook us then make us pay if only there was something that was always free forever

[–] secret300@lemmy.sdf.org 59 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

Oh no a paid, proprietary, piece of shit software does something shitty. Who could've ever saw this coming?!

I've said it for years anytime anyone mentioned running a Plex server. As soon as you install that on your server or your homelab it's no longer your server. Proprietary software is malware

[–] AnonomousWolf@lemm.ee 7 points 18 hours ago

I hope more people realise this.

If it's not Open Source, I don't want it

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 4 points 17 hours ago

The worst part for me was reading that they monitor everything you do, and what you streams and who looks at your stuff.

Wtf

B-b-b-but my convenience!!!

[–] dezmd@lemmy.world 49 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

"On 21 May 2008, XBMC developer Elan Feingold forked the source code of XBMC and started a new project called Plex"

GPL v2 source.

They've long been suspected of being greedy lil GPL violaters.

https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/2974

[–] Absaroka@lemmy.world 19 points 18 hours ago

Wasn't expecting to see that.

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 13 points 20 hours ago

Another reason donating to FOSS is better than paying for proprietary software. Proprietary software devs get to run around stealing whatever code they like from the open-source community and never suffer any consequence because they don't make their source available. I can think of a select few proprietary projects that have the balls to be source-available.

If you want to intentionally create a system that lets you evade accountability for stealing code, "fine", but I have zero respect for you or your product, and I'm certainly not paying you a dime. I'll put my money toward the developers who work to better the world instead of the rat fucks who steal from them to make money and pollute the software ecosystem with proprietary trash.

[–] commander@lemmy.world 47 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

The more users on Jellyfin the better shot it has at getting more developer attention and users willing to contribute financially even if just occasional one off donation. How it goes with any open source application. More users, more developer interest, more feedback from users, subset of users willing to financially support the project

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[–] bktheman@awful.systems 39 points 22 hours ago (11 children)

Thank you for posting this. I thought it was just me.

In my case, one user actually lost access entirely to my libraries, the updated app was trying to force him to buy a personal pass, even though I have a Plex pass.

I had him reset his app and clear cache, to no avail. I ended up having to REMOVE his access to my libraries, and then reshare them to him, before he could access them again.

He was quite upset at Plex during the entire process.

Then the next day, he got this same email, and was frustrated all over again thinking he was gonna have to fight it again.

Really terrible customer service here, very sloppy. Aside from the fact that this is a greedy cash grab, it's just being done poorly.

Jellyfin still isn't feature packed enough for me to switch to, unfortunately.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 11 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I'm getting a lot of vitriol here from people saying "Well your users are idiots", or other angry things. No, my users are family members, and not everyone needs a degree in CS to be able to connect to a Plex server. A few of them are elderly. The email was misleading to them, on purpose. It threw many of them into a flurry. The whole thing was handled terribly by a company who keeps going out of their way to make it difficult for them already to simply watch my server.

I'd suggest trying Jellyfin out again. Personally I was in the same boat even just over a year ago, I wasn't impressed, but it's come a long way. It's absolutely not as polished as Plex, but if you can look past that I'm finding most of the features I need are there.

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[–] ricardofcf@lemmy.pt 9 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

I find the server part of Jellyfin to work pretty well and I love that it provides some features you would have to pay to get on Plex (skip intro/credits for instance). The clients on the other hand, specially for tvOS and the fact that you can't install it from the store on Samsung TVs, are really what's making it difficult for me to switch.

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[–] AnonomousWolf@lemm.ee 9 points 18 hours ago

Open Source

[–] magic_smoke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 24 points 23 hours ago (27 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.

[–] skoell13@feddit.org 13 points 23 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

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[–] spicehoarder@lemm.ee 9 points 21 hours ago (4 children)
  1. better computer literacy is always better
  2. mas adoption -> more contributing -> more features like "share with friends"
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[–] veng@lemmy.world 38 points 1 day ago (5 children)

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

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[–] dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

I have plex set up with cloudflare tunnels, with the url configured in plex under Settings > Network > Custom server access URLs, does this mean that my users will no longer be able to view content inside the plex app or app.plex.tv? The enshittification is real

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[–] HulkSmashBurgers@reddthat.com 51 points 1 day ago (7 children)

I've only ever used jellyfin and have no complaints.

I avoided plex and went with jellyfill because it's free/libre software.

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[–] glitching@lemmy.ml 102 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

not a plex user but someone buried the lede here... to me, this is the neon sign that screams GTFO:

we noticed that you've accessed libraries in the past

what business of yours is it to notice my private comings and goings?! what other actionable intel do y'all keep in your logs?! bye!

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[–] rhacer@lemmy.world 14 points 23 hours ago (4 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.

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[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day 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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[–] shan23@lemmy.world 81 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Guess it’s time to start using jellyfin and contributing

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