That's all folks, Plex is starting to charge for sharing

a year ago by Scrubbles to c/selfhosted

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.

30p87 224 points a year ago

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

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LandedGentry 175 points a year ago

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LilB0kChoy 34 points a year ago

I run into you again! This time I get to wholeheartedly agree with you! You are spot on and nailed it.

I use Plex for exactly the reasons you said because when I set it up I didn’t know anything about self hosting a media server and I wanted to share with family in other locations. I keep it because it’s so easy for my older, less tech savvy family members to access so I don’t have to be their support person for it.

I’d consider Jellyfin if the end user access was more plug and play.

The biggest thing about this is I don’t get why OP is so annoyed. If you have a Plex Pass you’re not impacted, you can still share and your users can still access your library for free, they can’t share with you without a Plex Pass but who cares.

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Ulrich 17 points a year ago

I’d consider Jellyfin if the end user access was more plug and play.

It's about as plug and play as any other website. They just open the app, type in the URL, and log in with their credentials and...that's it.

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SMillerNL 5 points a year ago

What about combining sources? Because in plex I can search all libraries. Mine or external.

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MaggiWuerze 2 points a year ago

After setting up an elaborate VPN scheme

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Pornacount128 2 points a year ago

How exactly are you aquiring a folder full of media without technical know how in the first place? (Genuine question?)

I suppose having Plex handle users is easier than creating an account but barely imo.

Not shitting on Plex either, gotta do what you want I think the problems with this kind of thing is the change, people had a free service for years and now they have to change or pay. People hate change, lol

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shutz 7 points a year ago

I've been "collecting" content for many years now. I learned most of what I needed to know about ripping and transcoding over the years, such that each time I need to deal with a new video format, or a new application, it's not too hard, because I'm building on everything I've already learned.

And each time I was learning new things, it's not like there was a risk that all my previous content might suddenly become unusable or inaccessible.

Meanwhile, a couple years ago I was finally able to build myself a proper NAS. While I know my way around Linux somewhat, I never kept a Linux-based daily driver because most of the apps I use regularly are on Windows, and I'm not confident about running them stably in Linux, nor am I confident about equivalent native Linux apps. And I'm not confident about setting up and administering my own server. My past experiences have shown me that whenever you need to do anything complex and specific, it involves a lot of work.

So at a coworker's suggestion, I got a Synology NAS that turned out to be a breeze to setup. And then I figured out how to get Plex server on there (not available in the Synology package manager, but the "manual" process turned out to be simple enough)

And it just WORKS! it's not perfect, but it's mostly painless to use. I was happy paying for the lifetime Plex pass at the beginning, because it handles all the routing and discovery that needs to happen to allow me to stream to my phone, or to my parents' TV when I'm visiting them.

My next NAS might not be by Synology due to their recent announcement about supported hard drives, but I'll probably be looking for something that "just works" because I can't be bothered to learn how to be a sysadmin, and risk losing my stuff because I'm making the kinds of mistakes one makes as they're learning.

Just like, if I owned a car, I wouldn't be digging under the hood to "tweak the timing" or replacing brake discs. I'd be happy paying someone I trust to do that work, leaving me with a car that "just works".

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Couldbealeotard 6 points a year ago

How many people with a folder full of media also know how to safety expose a home server to the internet? It would be less than 1%.

Meanwhile, you don't need network engineer levels of knowledge to run Plex for remote access. You download the software, choose the folder, and send your friends a share link.

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CmdrShepard42 3 points a year ago

How exactly are you aquiring a folder full of media without technical know how in the first place? (Genuine question?)

Because there are excellent setup guides out there that walk you through the process and allow you to set all this up without knowing anything about the individual steps you're taking.

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realbadat 1 point a year ago

I’d consider Jellyfin if the end user access was more plug and play.

Honestly if it could support multi-server login cleanly, that would be the trick right there.

That said, haven't had any issues, but I did have to help family set it up the first time.

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LandedGentry 1 point a year ago

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SoleInvictus 11 points a year ago

I LOVE Jellyfin but can only imagine the amount of work I'd have to do if I tried to get my parents and in-laws successfully using it. We all just split the cost of lifetime Plex pass the last time it was on sale.

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flightyhobler 5 points a year ago

can only imagine the amount of work I'd have to do

Insert url. Insert login credentials.

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superkret 5 points a year ago

What's a url?

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SoleInvictus 1 point a year ago

I see you know as much about Jellyfin as you do about my in-laws.

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FreedomAdvocate -5 points a year ago

Insert virus on your server.

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kratoz29 6 points a year ago

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.

I am just gonna read your comment until here, Plex does shit if you are CGNATED, and as it is 2025 I suppose most users are, I still needed to expose through IPv6 with a reverse proxy, using a VPS or a VPN to access my Plex Server, so yeah, Plex hasn't helped me at all since many years ago with the noob friendly approach they have.

EDIT: Oh and their relay feature is garbage, even for Plex Pass users, and I happen to be a lifetime one.

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dutchkimble 3 points a year ago

Completely agree, and I think it’s fair for them to make it a paid feature. It’s kind of like using wireguard yourself to create a whole network vs Tailscale.

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L3G1T1SM3 1 point a year ago

Outside of portforwarding plex ports on your router though? But yeah plex does provide a service and it is asinine the pushback this is getting.

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semperverus -4 points a year ago

Any time you rely on another company to handle your data, you are beholden to their whims, end of story. Don't like what they're doing? Too bad. Give up the convenience and host it yourself, or continue to be a slave to their corporate interests.

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LandedGentry 10 points a year ago

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CmdrShepard42 2 points a year ago

Or Lemmy

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semperverus 1 point a year ago

Been slowly chipping away at those for the last decade (could have gone way faster but I'm lazy), and I'm almost completely google-free. I dont use any microsoft products at home (work forces me to), and Apple can eat my ass. My phone is a completely de-googled GrapheneOS device (I don't have an issue relying on companies for hardware, just software), and hopefully in the future a Liberux or Pinephone linux phone.

I self-host my own movies, music, and cloud storage. I also host my own chat service for friends and family, built on top of XMPP. The services i do use are generally very privacy respecting like Signal for people outside of my social sphere, or freedom respecting like Lemmy (mostly weaned off of reddit).

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myersguy -42 points a year ago

Downvote without explanation. Nice!

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LandedGentry 13 points a year ago

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ripcord 5 points a year ago

I assume they replied to you after someone downvoted you but before all the upvotes.

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9point6 60 points a year ago

For a good while, Plex was the only game in town that did the job well, and they put the transcoding feature behind the paywall.

Given it wasn't that expensive for a lifetime pass a number of years ago (I remember it was cheaper than a game anyway) and they still seemed relatively user-centric at the time, many people like me felt like they were supporting developers building something that was useful to us.

I still run my Plex server since it's not really costing me not to, but I've been running Jellyfin too for a little while and it more or less can do the same job these days

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scrubbles 16 points a year ago

Yup, for the time it was worth it. I got about 7 years out of my "lifetime" plex pass, and I got it on sale. All in all, I won't say the money was wasted.

It's 100% a waste if anyone pays for that BS monthly streaming fee though.

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FreedomAdvocate 1 point a year ago

Wait so you've got a lifetime plex pass already? Then literally nothing changes for you or anyone that is streaming from your server.

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TrickDacy -8 points a year ago

Yeah, they're just bitching. Pretty funny imo

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Lyra_Lycan 2 points a year ago

I put my chips (£100) on Emby.

I haven't regretted my purchase. I can't sell anyone on much either, because Emby does all the same as other services, except they've kept adding features while Plex kept doing the Google thing and taking them away. CPU transcoding is free I believe, as is remote streaming up to 10 devices for each user.. Idk I paid pretty early on, but lifetime license is where it's at. Subscriptions just open your asshole for greedy CEOs to fuck you. Best to keep subscriptions voluntary, like donating on Github or Patreon

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AbidanYre 48 points a year ago

Emby was borne out of classic workplace toxicity, in that Jellyfin was becoming too corporate so a couple devs forked off to keep it clean.

I think you have that backwards. Jellyfin is a fork of emby

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Darkassassin07 15 points a year ago

Yeah; Emby was originally called MediaBrowser and was a free open source project. 'MediaBrowsers' developers decided to move to a closed source paid model to establish some more consistent income and support the dedicated developers they have. Thus Emby was born.

Some users were really unhappy with this decision and forked MediaBrowsers last release to create Jellyfin. Their development has been quite a bit slower, but they've made some significant strides in recent years. It's a more and more attractive option.

One of my biggest reasons for sticking with Emby (besides already having a lifetime premier license) is the dedicated clients available on more platforms. Xbone is my primary streaming device, besides android: Emby has a dedicated xbox client you can install that will take full advantage of the the hardware(more content direct plays, HEVC video for example), where as Jellyfin you've gotta use the web browser which is cumbersome and forces the server to transcode media a lot more.

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Lyra_Lycan 1 point a year ago

Indeed I did, I removed my speculative comments..

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ripcord 1 point a year ago

I'm pretty happy with Emby, which also lets me easily do remote streaming.

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Darkassassin07 37 points a year ago

In the case of plex, it's not 100% selfhosted. There's a dependence on plexs public infrastructure for user management/authentication. They also help bypass NAT by proxying connections through their servers so you don't have to setup port forwarding and can even easily escape double NAT situations.

I can understand paying for that convenience, but cost keeps rising while previously free features continue to get locked behind paywalls.

Tbh, having users required to authenticate with plex.tv was enough for me to look elsewhere. The biggest reason to self host for me is to remove dependency on public services.

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deegeese 25 points a year ago

The central user management is not a feature, it’s a hook to force people to pay for self-hosted software.

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Darkassassin07 10 points a year ago

Can't say I disagree.

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TheButtonJustSpins 4 points a year ago

100% my experience as well. The external authentication requirement is what made my choose Jellyfin a couple years ago.

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chaospatterns 14 points a year ago

With Plex, you're getting the easy ability to grant access to users. You get a single pane that can search across multiple Plex instances, and NAT traversal/port forwarding. Jellyfin makes you figure that out yourself.

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NotKyloRen 4 points a year ago

It's not exactly difficult if you use Tailscale or really any VPN. So I really don't see the value for the cost; if you're even considering self hosting a Plex server/instance, there's a list of basic knowledge you should have or learn (like what you mentioned).

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chaospatterns 28 points a year ago

Its not difficult for technical people like you or me, but my friend who just wants to watch their favorite show on my Plex on their TV won't know how to traffic engineer the traffic over a Tailscale network to my network. My mom won't be installing Tailscale on her laptop and phone.

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ripcord 7 points a year ago

I'm also not particularly happy with giving a bunch of people VPB access to my setup. Or other potential complications that come with that setup.

I know enough to be able to lock it down, but I dont want the hassle. And other people will want it less.

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ada 0 points a year ago

As long as the technical person does all of the setup on their end, the non technical person only has to enter a domain and port in their jellyfin client.

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Chronographs 3 points a year ago

I paid for a lifetime license years ago which is significantly cheaper than that.

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FreedomAdvocate 3 points a year ago

It’s not exactly difficult if you use Tailscale or really any VPN. So I really don’t see the value for the cost;

Getting everyone that streams from your server to use tailscale or any other VPN every time they want to watch stuff from your server on any device they own is very difficult and basically a no-go. As someone that tried getting people who are using my plex server to use Tailscale so they could access my Overseer to request movies/shows, and basically no one would, it's a deal breaker.

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TheButtonJustSpins 3 points a year ago

I will say, I really want someone* to make a Jellyfin aggregator so you can use multiple servers at once.

*Not me.

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Flax_vert 8 points a year ago

Immich has a weird "buy a licence" model which literally does nothing.

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Showroom7561 19 points a year ago

Immich, I believe, is linked to Futo. And Futo has a license model that's basically "if you like this app, and want to support the development, consider buying a license."

Sounds like it might be similar with Immich.

Better than "donate to this project", since a license seems more like the user is getting something out of it, even if it's basically a glorified donation 😂

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asbestos 5 points a year ago

Instantly bought the server license. Support your favorite FOSS, people.

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30p87 4 points a year ago

I never even saw that, while running my own instance lol

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b3an 8 points a year ago

When they monitor what you watch and who you share it with, it’s enshittified. Fuck Plex. I used to be a lifetime drum thumper. Stopped a few years ago.

Plex doesn’t care about you, your comfort, ease. It wants your money and it wants to monitor and control what you do with your own data.

Fuck. That.

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TeamAssimilation 7 points a year ago

Take HomeAssistant for example: you’re free to use it self-hosted, but as soon as you want to expose it securely through the Internet, there’s need for infrastructure that has costs, both in materials and labor. In HomeAssistant’s case, it’s NabuCasa that does it, and costs money, and helps fund the work of HomeAssistant’s developers.

Having things free (libre) and open source is a blessing, but we have become used, entitled, even spoiled, to enjoy the work of very specialized people for free. That’s not always feasible.

Another example, Zabbix, is totally open source and free, they only charge for support and training if you ask for them. It has worked for them for many years, but if they start to struggle with funding, I’d understand if they charged for it.

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techwithjake 3 points a year ago

Home Assistant doesn't require to pay for anything at any point in time for any reason. If you want to expose your instance to the web, they have all the documents on how to do it yourself. There's absolutely nothing "hidden" behind a paywall. The only reason to say is if you want Nabu Casa to handle exposing your instance to the internet and various cloud services like Google Assistant/Alexa. The reason to pay Nabu Casa is if you don't have the technical know how (or lazy like me) and to help fund Home Assistant (which I want).

That's all to say that Plex and Home Assistant are not similar in their pay scheme. It'd be more akin if Jellyfin started charging users to allow a one click way to stream outside the home with no obligation to.

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PP_BOY_ 0 points a year ago

You can selfhost for free however you want but software developers have the right to ask for money to use their software. I selfhost about 60tb of media and have paid for Plex monthly for about 10 years now. They are still so far above the competition for ease-of-use that I wouldn't even consider switching at this point, even to save $7/month.

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scrubbles 14 points a year ago

They have the right to ask, but I don't have to pay. I've been playing with Jellyfin for about a month now, and I have to say, it's just as easy as Plex is. The only thing I had to do myself was make my own users. In fact, I tried Jellyfin a few years ago and was unimpressed - now all I see is Plex making stuff to make advertisers happy while Jellyfin is adding stuff to make it's users happy, to the point where I think Jellyfin has surpassed Plex.

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Cyber 7 points a year ago

But would you / do you voluntarily donate to Jellyfin's development?

I get it, it is (& a lot of things are) free... but at some point the developers need to recoup something...

Otherwise Jellyfin's development will eventually dry up as raw enthusiasm runs out.

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scrubbles 2 points a year ago

Yup, like why I bought Plex pass at the time. I was happy to pay for the good work they were doing. They had nice uis, their code was stable, and new features rolled out regularly. I'll happily be doing the same for jellyfin.

Plex wants people to pay now for the same functionality. Big difference in my book.

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Orygin 1 point a year ago

Jellyfin refuses donations so even if I (not the one you're responding to) wanted to, I would not be able to.
Pretty funny one has to keep reducing features and increase prices, while the other is actively refusing funds because they have enough already.

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carl_dungeon 7 points a year ago

Jellyfin have native apps that are any good? I use plex heavily on ps5, appleTV, iOS, and people’s random smart TVs, all of which have really good first class apps. I also support users that are not technically inclined, so they would need to be able to just install and app and log in.

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scrubbles 4 points a year ago

My experience with the apps has been good, I use the android TV one daily and I like it. The most I had to do was log in using the username/password and also the URL, but I plan on just giving that to my users so they know how to log in.

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FreedomAdvocate -3 points a year ago

No Jellyfin app on AppleTV or PS5.

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Prunebutt 2 points a year ago

Exactly. This is a bet that Plex is going to lose with the proliferation of Jellyfin.

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pory 6 points a year ago

I dunno about that. Plex has lots of market share and plenty of "well I bought the pass when it was $60/$90" people aren't gonna be personally affected by them locking more and more functionality behind the pass. So they'll keep using it and recommending it and talking about it, and the centralized account management stuff (which Jellyfin won't copy, because not having that is the point of selfhosting) will always be more convenient than setting up VPNs or other tools like external auth for Jellyfin sharing over the internet.

Discourse about this everywhere always boils down to the same comment: "I bought the plex pass and honestly I'd do it again for $300 just to not deal with handling my own authentication system, plex remote play Just Works". Or something like "I refuse to use a $20 HDMI android TV box instead of my ad-ridden smart TV or PlayStation 5, and those don't have apps for JF". These guys are literally in this thread, on Lemmy, the Reddit for people so FOSS-friendly they use Lemmy instead of Reddit.

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PP_BOY_ 1 point a year ago

All fair points, just depends on where your motivation to self host comes from. $7 for a monthly sub to Plex is frankly nothing to me, I don't even have the charge linked to my budget spreadsheet. Between Plex, VPN, my usenet provider, private tracker memberships, electricity, etc., I'm not even sure I'm saving much money versus having one or two streaming subscriptions. In other words, I don't do it to save money.

PlexAmp alone justifies the cost even before some features got put behind a paywall but the fact that all my tech-illiterate friends can just download an app on their phones/consoles and watch whatever they want in a high bitrate off my computer makes it worth it for me. 9/10, I just watch films off VLC player anyway.

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ripcord 0 points a year ago

Eh, I find Emby pretty close to on-par at this point.

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SplashJackson 178 points a year ago

Lol "Your Friends at Plex"

get fucked, assholes, Jellyfin is better anyway

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legion02 35 points a year ago

Doesn't jellyfin just not do this at all? Like if you want to stream remotely you need to figure out a vpn solution to do it?

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semperverus 25 points a year ago

You can stream remotely via jellyfin if you expose your server to the internet. VPN is safer but not the only option.

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MaggiWuerze 1 point a year ago

Yeah, no way. Jellyfins Backend is like an open barn door. And with the kind of content most of us here offer through either Jellyfin or Plex, I wouldn't want to open up like that.

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NotSteve_ 7 points a year ago

Anecdotal but I’ve run Jellyfin publicly without any issues for around 5 years. It even has its own domain name.

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Dave 2 points a year ago

Isn't there an assumption it would be behind a reverse proxy... At least I hope that's the assumption.

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fossilesque 17 points a year ago

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CmdrShepard42 12 points a year ago

"Very easy" assuming you aren't trying to share with non-technical people or your elderly parents.

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fossilesque -2 points a year ago

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Onomatopoeia 12 points a year ago

Also Wireguard, which is what Tailscale uses.

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fossilesque 2 points a year ago

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akilou 8 points a year ago

Dude how the hell am I supposed to walk my mom through setting up tailscale on her Roku?

And what if you have multiple friends all sharing each others libraries?

This is not a feasible solution let alone a "very easy" one.

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fossilesque -2 points a year ago

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legion02 2 points a year ago

Completely unreasonable to need to walk people through this. It's OK to say jellyfin can't do remote access.

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fossilesque 1 point a year ago

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logos 12 points a year ago

I used a reverse proxy just fine.

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charles 10 points a year ago

You're 100% correct. I always find it funny how hardcore some people are with jellyfin vs Plex. I'll probably end up getting downvotes on this but imo Plex is way simpler to setup and keep running, and as a lifetime pass owner, I've very rarely felt like my experience has been deteriorated by any of the changes that the jellyfin crowd freaks out about. Plus plexamp is honestly such a great music player. I'll happily keep running Plex for the foreseeable future.

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TeamAssimilation 4 points a year ago

Plex is more polished, but I love Jellyfin’s subtitle search; it blows Plex’s socks away.

Also, Jellyfin doesn’t nag me every effing time to enable DRM in Firefox for some unfathomable reason.

But Plex definitely wins on performance, IMO.

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FreedomAdvocate 0 points a year ago

Set up Bazarr.

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TrickDacy 4 points a year ago

Ditto to all of this, except I don't know anything about plexamp

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charles 4 points a year ago

If you have music on your server, I'd strongly recommend checking it out. I believe it was started as a side project by the Plex devs and it's a way better music player than the one built into the Plex apps.

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__ghost__ 8 points a year ago

That's correct

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themachine 13 points a year ago

That is not correct. A VPN would be one method but you can also just expose the service to the internet in a number of ways and accomplish the same thing Plex provides.

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mobotsar 22 points a year ago

You probably shouldn't just expose jellyfin to the internet quite yet though. There are some ongoing efforts to fix unauthenticated endpoint problems.

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sudneo 2 points a year ago

Not to be "achtuallying" bit VPN is not a way to remote stream, it's a way to bring remote clients in the local network.

Likewise exposing services on the internet...not really going to happen esepcially for people - like me - that run plex/jellyfin on their NAS.

I don't have a horse in this race, i don't use remote streaming, I only ever streamed from my nas to my 2 TVs, and I am experimenting with jellyfin. But for those who do need remote streaming, jellyfin is going to be problematic.

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__ghost__ 1 point a year ago

That's correct

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CmdrShepard42 7 points a year ago

Not necessarily a VPN but you're 100% on your own for security. When i used to run Emby, I had a white-list IPs but this doesn't work great since most ISPs rotate IPs over time and if you're on wireless it could change all the time.

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FreedomAdvocate 1 point a year ago

Yeah a VPN isn't "necessary", but it's the most straightforward way. Unfortunately it's not really at all feasible for many people who currently play from other peoples plex libraries.

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merthyr1831 4 points a year ago

I use a non-rooted docker, reverse proxy, and cloudfare domain. I know Jellyfin has some API security issues but I'm still unconvinced that any of them can be used to escalate to any level that would threaten my server (or even my instance of Jellyfin).

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MaggiWuerze 2 points a year ago

They are not about escalating permissions but about unauthorized access to your library. As some living in a country with professional piracy lawyers, that go out and try to catch people in the act, I won't open my server to that kind of risk.

I like Jellyfin being open source and all, but the maintainers made it clear that they prefer backwards compatibility with clients over fixing these issues.

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merthyr1831 2 points a year ago

Oh yeah I don't buy the backwards compat stuff because you can version an API to preserve backwards compatibility to sensible ends.

I'd be very interested to see cases of streaming or copyright lawyers essentially hacking users to litigate them. The only stuff Ive ever seen on snooping by corps on pirates it's usually collecting PII from public sources like torrent clients without VPN coverage.

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themachine 2 points a year ago

No. You have to expose your server to the internet in some way bit you don't have to set up some sort of VPN. There are plenty of people who will tell you how awful of an idea it is but if you make smart choices it's not a big deal.

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sudneo 0 points a year ago

Well, as an application it has a huge attack surface, it's also able to download stuff from internet (e.g., subs) and many people run it on NAS. I run jellyfin in docker, I didn't do a security assessment yet, but for sure it needs volume mounts, not sure about what capabilities it runs with (surely NET_BIND, and I think DAC_READ_SEARCH to avoid file ownership issues with downloaders?). Either way, I would never expose a service like that on the internet.

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RaccoonBall 2 points a year ago

This is also true about Plex which must also be exposed to the internet

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Kusimulkku 1 point a year ago

Incorrect.

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Inaminate_Carbon_Rod 20 points a year ago

I fucking hate corporate speak.

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GissaMittJobb 15 points a year ago

Jellyfin is better anyway

I wish this were true, but as a multi-year Plex-to-Jellyfin migrant, I have to point out that Plex was the better software.

I still choose to run Jellyfin for other reasons (don't like the commercial path Plex is taking, among others), but I still do miss the better reliability and larger feature set in the Plex software stack.

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Mister_Hangman -24 points a year ago

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bigkahuna1986 57 points a year ago

Good thing jellyfin is open source then.

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69420 9 points a year ago

That's what Emby thought.

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Xanza 126 points a year ago

Seems like it was only a matter of time.

20% more will jump to Jellyfin. The other 80% will entrench and talk even more about how great Plex is. I mean Jesus, $250 to watch pirated movies. lol wtf It's also fucking wild to me that people are defending a monetization model that is on self hosted hardware. Like, I gotta pay for my server and then a license to avoid buying DVDs. Fuck it, at this point just buy the fucking movie.

Ya'll are brain dead. Plex loves you tho.

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drspod 120 points a year ago

Trying to monetize the piracy of your users. That's a bold business strategy.

Look, I know a lot of people could be using the sharing feature to share material that is in the public domain or that they own the copyright to, but let's be honest: most of that sharing would be considered an "unlicensed public performance" by the MAFIAA.

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mosiacmango 70 points a year ago

They sold to private equity a couple years back. The enshittification started that day.

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jonathan 9 points a year ago

They took VC funding (which is also bad), selling to private equity is very different (they strip mine businesses).

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adarza 10 points a year ago

to monetize the piracy of your users

that's generally what gets sites and services in 'trouble'

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T156 4 points a year ago

Trying to monetize the piracy of your users. That's a bold business strategy.

Some time ago, never mind how long precisely, Plex were trying to legitimise themselves, by adding streaming from official sources, etc.

I would be curious if this is meant to be a deterrent, or just to look like one by making piracy expensive, so they can eat their cake and have it too.

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CmdrShepard42 3 points a year ago

It's not that expensive. You can buy a lifetime pass for like $70 when it goes on sale. That's like half the price I pay to Comcast each month for my internet.

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AugustWest 3 points a year ago

Not anymore. They changed the prices and discounts by quite a bit.

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rickyrigatoni 1 point a year ago

Dotcom's been doing it for decades and he's rich as hell. Even after losing 95% of his money since 2012 he's still got $10mil.

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glitching 111 points a year ago

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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shan23 89 points a year ago

Guess it’s time to start using jellyfin and contributing

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phoenixz 71 points a year ago

Welcome to jellyfin!

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secret300 71 points a year ago

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

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TheTechnician27 60 points a year ago

Exhibit #46,853 for why freeware will inevitably fall out from under your feet and why you should exclusively use FOSS wherever possible.

EDIT: Here's Jellyfin's 'How to Contribute' page.

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Xanza 4 points a year ago

Preach, brother! Preach!

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dezmd 55 points a year ago

"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

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commander 54 points a year ago

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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HulkSmashBurgers 54 points a year ago

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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ozoned 50 points a year ago

YES JELLYFIN! Thank you Plex for enshitifying!

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ripcord 19 points a year ago

And how are you doing remote streaming from friends with Jellyfin?

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ozoned 20 points a year ago

I'm not personally. I'd run a VPN for others to connect in. Apparently a lot of folks just expose it to the internet and then enforce logins.

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mtoboggan 8 points a year ago

Using a VPN would be local streaming with Plex, too. The new rules wouldn't apply then.

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CmdrShepard42 2 points a year ago

I'm no expert but I was never able to connect to Plex if the host was running a VPN which caused me a ton of issues until I figured out split tunneling.

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Cocodapuf 1 point a year ago

Gross

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Kecessa 17 points a year ago

My whole family streams from my brother's server hundreds of km away...

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TangledHyphae 9 points a year ago

I'm doing it with a jellyfin client to my friend's jellyfin server.

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fossilesque 6 points a year ago

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TheButtonJustSpins 4 points a year ago

I was forcing VPN for a couple years but I've just recently started allowlisting client IPs instead. Not as good but definitely easier.

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Kusimulkku 3 points a year ago

Give them the address of the server?

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Alph4d0g 1 point a year ago

Tailscale.

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dave 2 points a year ago

you can add 3 friends on the free tier of tailscale. might work for some people but others might have to pay for tailscale.

does anyone know is it possible to get around issue by running headscale yourself? can you add as many friends as you like then? maybe something like netbird might be a better option since its fully self hosted?

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Unmapped 1 point a year ago

Its a lot simpler then that. Dont add them to your tailscale account. Each user should have there own tailscale account. Then you just send them a link to share your machine (your server) with their tailnet. Then all of there devices they have added on their account can access your server.

Bonus: send them referrals and you get your device limit increased when they make a account. Which all they have to do is sign in with their google or apple account.

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Chastity2323 1 point a year ago

Reverse proxy + fail2ban

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ifItWasUpToMe 0 points a year ago

The same way you’d set up remote plex.

Plex will have some cost associated with remote streaming, so I don’t see any issue with them charging for that.

If people don’t want to pay then they should just set it up themselves, like they would have to do with jellyfin anyways.

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CmdrShepard42 5 points a year ago

No it's not the same as with Plex because they have their own security solution and authentication servers. With Jellyfin that's completely on you to figure out and doing it wrong (exposing open ports to the open internet) can have terrible consequences.

I do agree that it's not a huge deal to buy a lifetime Plex Pass as a server owner though. I've had my issues with Plex over the last decade but it's a hell of a lot more polished than the competition and it's extremely easy to share with all my friends and family who don't know shit about computers or other tech related subjects.

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ryan 2 points a year ago

@ifItWasUpToMe @ripcord I'm not sure if I'm understanding. What costs are there to plex remote streaming? The streaming aspect is coming directly from my plex server public IP. I know there is some option that proxies the traffic through their servers but this isn't enabled by default.

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ifItWasUpToMe 9 points a year ago

Mainly STUN and TURN servers to allow NAT traversal without having to configure port forwarding and leave your server exposed to the internet.

It’ll use those servers to setup a peer-to-peer connection which at that point you are streaming directly to clients.

If you want to setup a VPN for your users, or open/forward public ports to your server then you do not need to pay.

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CmdrShepard42 6 points a year ago

The Plex Relay is enabled by default and is used anytime people can't directly connect to your server like if your port forwarding is screwed up.

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TheTechnician27 2 points a year ago

Here's Jellyfin's 'How to Contribute' page.

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Cocodapuf 2 points a year ago

Quickly now, make jellyfin better!

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Jiggle_Physics 47 points a year ago

Dropped this for jellyfin years ago

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Darkassassin07 46 points a year ago

I got the same email.

I haven't had plex installed for over 7 years, and I've NEVER used the shared libraries feature.

We noticed that you’ve accessed libraries from friends and family in the past

They've apparently noticed activity that's never occurred.

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logos 2 points a year ago

https://www.androidauthority.com/...

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scrubbles -7 points a year ago

Others in another thread are trying to convince me that the email is wrong, that my Plex Pass should mean everyone gets to stream for free. The email, however, kinda indicates otherwise. So who knows what's going on over there, but either way - I'm done

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PsychoNaut 23 points a year ago

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assaultpotato 15 points a year ago

Per the email text and Plex's policy, they are correct - only Server Owners need the Pass.

That said I moved to Jellyfin months ago when they announced it.

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scrubbles -7 points a year ago

Except I have a pass and my users are still getting the email. So either they're incompetent sending out the emails, they are trying to trick my users into thinking they need to pay, or they're lying and they will need to pay eventually... All of those reasons tell me it's time to stop using Plex.

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gamermanh 15 points a year ago

Yeah, they shot an email to everyone with an account, it's pretty normal. It explicitly says:

Alternatively, server owners can buy a Plex pass

Which is pretty clear language

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Chronographs 7 points a year ago

Only the server owner needs a plex pass, it says that in the email.

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AmbiguousProps 6 points a year ago

I don't quite understand your confusion, they sent the email to everyone with an account. The email indicates clearly that if a server owner has a Plex pass, the users do not need it. The email is not "wrong".

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NameTaken 6 points a year ago

Instead of taking a minute to just read the entire email, they decided to go immediately to the internet to complain. Then when people explained to them multiple times what is going on they decided to argue with them instead of ya know reading the email. The internet is alive and well.

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scrubbles -6 points a year ago

My users are upset, and that makes me upset. I've been fielding calls and messages from them for the last hour where they're worried they have to start paying. So yeah, I don't really care that it doesn't apply to them, Plex sent an email that to the average user looks like they need to start paying. That was a shitty move on their part.

They could have done a banner on each client if they connected to a non-plex pass server and said "Hey starting in a few days, this won't be free", and left plex pass ones alone. They could have narrowed the emails down to "If you've connected to a free server in the last year". It appears that they just blasted it out. I know for a fact that one of the accounts has never connected to a free server.e

And all of that is ignoring that it was free for a decade already, so why is it suddenly a "premium" service. So yeah, they bungled the entire situation, and I'm out.

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jumjummy 8 points a year ago

Your users are upset? Either they’re damn entitled, or you’re charging them like one of those “streaming” services.

Who gets upset with an email when it clearly states what’s going on regarding the Plex Pass.

Funny to hear all the complaining from people about Plex. I’ve been using it for years and bought a lifetime pass years ago because I wanted to support them. If you’ve been using it for so long and loved it, I question why you never bought a pass?

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AmbiguousProps 6 points a year ago

Your users shouldn't be upset because nothing has changed for them. It shouldn't be the end of the world to tell your users that nothing has changed. None of my users have reached out.

I'll agree that they should have only sent it to affected users.

Your users might be more upset that you're pulling the plug and will require technically involved setups such as tailscale for Jellyfin. Gotta pick your battles.

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MaggiWuerze 3 points a year ago

You shouldn't blame Plex for your or your users illiteracy

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FreedomAdvocate 1 point a year ago

The email says that if the admin/owner of the plex server you stream from has a Plex Pass then nothing changes.

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bktheman 41 points a year ago

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.

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SirEDCaLot 41 points a year ago

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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veng 39 points a year ago

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

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njm1314 39 points a year ago

So as long as the server owner has Plex pass everyone's still able to stream from the server?

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wheres_frank 19 points a year ago

Exactly. I have a lifetime pass and everything works for me and the people I share my library with.

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scrubbles 7 points a year ago

Thing that has always been free for over a decade now suddenly costs a subscription even though there is no overhead to Plex

Yeah, don't care, scummy thing.

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endeavor 38 points a year ago

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pyre 37 points a year ago

"your friends"

dude my friends don't charge me for shit

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WickedZebra66 36 points a year ago

Heloooooo Jellyfin!

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Alph4d0g 35 points a year ago

Jellyfin. Tailscale. Bob's your uncle.

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xodoh74984 35 points a year ago

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ClemaX 34 points a year ago

Fuck them, glad I switched to Jellyfin years ago.

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Steve 33 points a year ago

Friendship ended with plex, jellyfin is new best friend.

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rumba 30 points a year ago

Playon, Evernote, Lastpass, there have been plenty of examples.

Whenever a company starts charging for previously free features, it's time to GTFO, even if you're on their pay side.

I've got lifetime Plexpass, but I can read the writing on the wall. It's only a matter of time before they enshittify my product or stop providing updates. They'll sunset Plex and start Plex+ or some shit, give em a year or so.

Get your Jellyfin installed and working, they can work beside each other. Tailscale if it's just you, reverse proxy if you have the fam on in.

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magic_smoke 26 points a year ago

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.

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melmi 23 points a year ago

It seems like multiple things are being conflated here and I'm not sure what the reality is because I've never used Plex.

Some people claim this has something to do with Plex needing to pay for NAT traversal infrastructure. Okay, that seems sort of silly but at least there's the excuse that their servers are involved in the streaming somehow.

But their wording is very broad, just calling it "remote streaming." That led me to this article on the Plex support website, which walks people through setting up port forwarding in order to enable "remote streaming"! So that excuse doesn't really seem to hold water. What exactly is being paid for here then? How do they define what "local streaming" is?

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PP_BOY_ 23 points a year ago

This was announced several months ago

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scrubbles 6 points a year ago

I'm a server owner and had no idea. If I did, I would have left then.

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Revilo62 4 points a year ago

What's the alternative you're going with?

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scrubbles 3 points a year ago

I've been testing out Jellyfin for a while anyway. I'm honestly surprised how much they've caught up

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Revilo62 0 points a year ago

That's another service that doesn't provide free remote streaming, not without setting up remote access in a way that would also work for Plex. So why is this the change that's making you leave Plex?

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zer0squar3d 2 points a year ago

As a server owner, you should be keeping an eye on tos and updates/changes to the software you use. You probably got an email but ignored it?

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EaterOfLentils 22 points a year ago

Enshittification marches on.

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FreedomAdvocate 22 points a year ago

As long as the library owner has a Plex Pass nothing changes for ANYONE who is streaming from that Plex Server.

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Ledivin 21 points a year ago

I'll be honest, I thought Plex Pass was always a requirement for this 😅

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MSids 21 points a year ago

I'm coming up on 5 years as a Plex pass owner, so my users and I will not be impacted by this change. In five more years if they asked me nicely to pay another $89 to support the service I would. Send me some stickers and put a badge on my server. I get a lot of use out of the software/service, as do my family members.

I will say, I am quite annoyed at the wording and audience of this email. Jellyfin is just not an option for me until there is excellent feature parity with Plex. I know they are a lot of Jellyfin fans here, in my opinion, Plex is a significantly better experience for me.

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j0ester 21 points a year ago

That was announced 2 months ago?

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cantankerous_cashew 21 points a year ago

It was only a matter of time. Plex is a Series C startup, employs 100+ people, and has taken substantial VC investment. Those investors are expecting exponential returns, and a "one-time lifetime payment" will never sustain that sort of growth

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DarrinBrunner 20 points a year ago

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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Album 20 points a year ago

This email is talking to you as a user of other libraries not yours, not as a server owner.

"Alternatively, server owners can purchase a Plex Pass, which will grant you continued remote streaming of libraries that you have been given access to."

As communicated previously, Plex pass users also get the benefit of the "Remote watch pass."

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scrubbles -12 points a year ago

No, I'm a plex pass holder, and the (now two) users who have received it only use my server. They still got the email.

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Saik0Shinigami 14 points a year ago

Okay? But they're not holders... and their access to servers is changing and hinges on YOUR status. It's not unreasonable to notify them about this change.

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AmbiguousProps 8 points a year ago

It doesn't matter that they got the email, everyone did. You need to read it further and see that if a server owner has a Plex pass, the users do not need to pay.

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MaggiWuerze 1 point a year ago

And as a Plex pass user nothing will change for you or your users.

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NigelFrobisher 19 points a year ago

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

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RememberTheApollo_ 18 points a year ago

The beginning of enshittification.

Prices will keep climbing, functionality reduced in favor of service tiers, and of course ads, ads, and ads.

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HurlingDurling 18 points a year 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

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Zink 17 points a year ago

I have a lifetime Plex Pass, but I stopped using Plex a couple months ago after finally diving into Jellyfin. Even ignoring everything else, just the performance difference made the change worth it. Everything from UI responsiveness on smart TV apps to library scans on the server.

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derry 17 points a year ago

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.

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chronicledmonocle 17 points a year ago

I bought Plex Pass when it was $75 for the lifetime option.

I prefer Jellyfin, but sharing is harder for family members with it because I can't get them to just log in without existing credentials (Google Account, Apple ID, etc). Trying to convince my 67 year old mother-in-law to enter a URL, username, and password into an app with a remote is like asking my child to eat broccoli.

For now, I'll keep running dual stack with both. If Plex pulls lifetime passes, even though it'll be a PITA, I'll convert everyone to Jellyfin despite the pain.

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craig9 16 points a year ago

Ditched this crapware for Jellyfin several years ago. Glad I did. It's been great.

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sj_zero 16 points a year ago

I started on Plex and even considered a lifetime Plex pass, but I felt like it was more interested in showing their content than my content. It was a lot of effort just to show music and movies.

My family and I use jellyfin every day now, and a key thing is it starts off boring but it shows your music, your movies, your books, your photos.

For folks who migrate who were paying, consider a donation to projects you make heavy use of. They don't usually have big companies behind them and can use the help.

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LavaPlanet 16 points a year ago

But it's included in a plex pass. I know a lot of people were saying, a while back, they were happy to purchase a lifetime pass, so as to support the software. I didn't actually realise you could share without the plex pass. I thought that was always a thing.

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CmdrShepard42 2 points a year ago

It was always a thing except with Android and iOS which had a separate one-time fee attached to enable remote playback.

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rhacer 14 points a year ago

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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Carrot 14 points a year ago

Been on Plex for years, I will be fully migrated to Jellyfin by the end of the week

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boreengreen 14 points a year ago

Jellyfin ia great! But syncplay breaks if you snease.

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offspec 9 points a year ago

Remember to take your Claritin before starting a sync play session

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Xanza 2 points a year ago

Weird. Never had an issue with syncplay... What's your setup look like?

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boreengreen 2 points a year ago

Jellyfin on arch behind nginx. I connect with VPN, through NAT or on the local network. What else to say? I have noticed that syncplay is significantly more reliable through nginx. Not sure why that is. But it is still fragile. I've had this issue unresolved so long that I am just living with it. If it works, great. If it doesn't, then i don't use it.

Clients: firefox, jellyfin client, chrome, android client. The issue is pretty consistent across them all.

I mostly keep 8bit AVC/ACC, 2-channel mp4s. Some h265 as well. I have not noticed a pattern. Syncplay seem agnostic to encodings and filetypes.

I get the feeling that i am far from alone on this issue. There are threads out there.

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Xanza 1 point a year ago

Syncplay requires adequate hardware and network. Especially if you're transcoding at the same time. You're transcoding for 2 people at once, and depending on your setup sending to each person at different rates. It's hard to coordinate that.

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boreengreen 1 point a year ago

That is why i keep most media as AVC/ACC mp4s. So to avoid transcoding. All video is 1080p or less. On a 1 Gb line.

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RabbitBBQ 13 points a year ago

The business model here is to basically paywall one user sharing (probably) pirated content with another person?

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Prunebutt 13 points a year ago

Enshittification engaged. /j

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Ace120C 13 points a year ago

the virgin Plex vs the chad Jellyfin

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thundermoose 13 points a year ago

This will affect any server that does not already have a Plex Pass/ Lifetime Plex Pass. If your server does not have one, your remote users will have to pay. The service Plex provides is still worth it though, it largely just works on dozens of platforms and that shit isn't free to make.

Sharing a Jellyfin server with others remotely is still a lot more complicated than it needs to be to compete (no, it's not as simple as opening a port, and if you think so then you're either lucky or you aren't sharing with lots of folks). I run both and I would never try to share Jellyfin with non-technical people. Honestly, I wish Jellyfin would start offering an optional paid relay service to fund their development. They could use the revenue to improve their app ecosystem and still produce mostly open-source software. Homeassistant does this with Nabu Casa and it's great!

That being said, the new Plex Android app kinda sucks ass. If there was anything that would make me switch it wouldn't be having to pay for software, or services it'd be a garbage experience on my most common platform.

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Lemmchen 3 points a year ago

Huh? I share my Jellyfin instance to people that are as tech savvy as a Neanderthal and besides some rare hickups everything works acceptably.

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thundermoose 4 points a year ago

All I can say is that is not at all like my experience with Jellyfin. Every person I've ever shared it with wanted to go back to Plex. Most complaints had to do with the jankiness of the various apps. Lots of issues with the UIs acting funny, a few connection drops, and some settings not getting respected. I do also recall an episode of Severance that would not stream in the correct color space in Jellyfin but worked perfectly in Plex.

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Lemmchen 2 points a year ago

Well, my users never used Plex before (me neither), maybe that helped to keep the expectations in check.

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mosiacmango 2 points a year ago

Jellyfin takes more work, but can be a "simple" end user experience if you set it up for them.

Use a reverse proxy to get a letsenceypt cert for your jellyfin server. SWAG, Caddy, lots of options. Then setup a free tailscale account and add your jellyfin server to your tailnet. Install the jellyfin and tailscale apps on the user android tv/apple tv/computer, then enroll the devices in your tailnet.

They will have always on, ssl secured, vpn protected media sharing for free.

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thundermoose 12 points a year ago

Yeah, I'm not interested in setting all that up and maintaining it for every user I share with. For myself, this is exactly how I access Jellyfin remotely, but I am not explaining to my remote family members how to set up a VPN on their TV.

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AtariDump 6 points a year ago

1000%, and those who’ve drank the Jellyfin Flavor Aid just don’t understand.

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AmbiguousProps 7 points a year ago

I'm not a diehard fan of plex or anything, but I would never be able to get my mother in law to properly set up any type of VPN. None of my users are technically inclined. Until Jellyfin has a different solution, I will unfortunately be sticking with Plex.

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mosiacmango 1 point a year ago

The lift here is that you setup the end users client. If they aren't local, buy one and ship it. Since it will be on your always on tailscale vpn, you can then interact with it remotely if needed.

Android tvs can be had for $35, Raspi 5 are around the same range, with apple tvs about $130. Have people pony up the cash and mail one of what they want out to them.

That may be too much to ask if you share to a lot of casual friends/family, but its been a successful answer for me.

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AmbiguousProps 3 points a year ago

If it was just my parents and I using it, that'd be fine, but it's not. In my experience, nothing is quite as simple as "always on", and if something breaks, even unrelated to tailscale or anything I set up, I'll be to blame even when it wasn't my fault.

It just wouldn't work for my users, unfortunately, and I don't want to be responsible for endpoints on networks that someone else owns. I'm not denying that it's possible or that it works for some people.

That's the real benefit of a solution like Plex - it makes it so I only have to manage my own network, and if I want to invite someone new, I just ask them for the email attached to their Plex account, and I'm done.

I also am curious where you're finding rpi's for $35.

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charade_you_are 1 point a year ago

I can't remember what I did, but I had it so the user just had to know the ip address and the port. Enter that into the jellyfin app on a tv and they could hook up pretty easily. That was with a reverse proxy I believe but I'm not really great with the setup, just followed a tutorial.

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LadyAutumn 12 points a year ago

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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butsbutts 12 points a year ago

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

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deathbird 12 points a year ago

What was the appeal of Plex anyway?

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ertai 10 points a year ago

Should have use libre software from the start my guy! Jellyfin / Kodi let's go

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Wizzard 10 points a year 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.

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MystikIncarnate 9 points a year ago

I am also a Plex pass person. Multiple times over in fact. I actually have a dedicated account for my server administrator that's separate from the account I use to watch content. Both have Plex pass lifetime.

I've been familiar with this coming down the pipeline for a while and because I have Plex pass, I too, am unaffected, as are my users.

At the same time: here is a piece of software that I paid for. It's "server" software, sure, but it's just a software package. What it does isn't really relevant. The fact is that it processes data stored on my systems, processing by my systems, using my hardware, and sends that data over the Internet, using the Internet connection I pay for separately, and delivers that data directly to the people I've designated as capable of doing so.

The only part of this process that Plex, the company, has any involvement in, is limited to: issuing an SSL certificate, managing user accounts and passwords, and brokering where to find data (pointers to my systems).

You can get a free SSL certificate from let's encrypt. User accounts, authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA), is a function of pretty much everything that you remotely connect to, whether a Windows SMB/cifs share, your email, even logging into your own local computer regardless of OS..... And honestly, brokering the connection isn't dissimilar to how torrent trackers work, DNS or a goddamned IP address punched into a browser.

They're offering shockingly little for what they're asking, and the only thing that's on the list that would be costly in the slightest is having a DNS name for the server (registration of the domain, DNS services, etc). And given the scale that they're doing these things at, the individual costs per name is literally pennies per year.

This is not a good look at all.

I have domain names coming out of my ears. I'm tempted to buy one more and just offer to anyone that wants it, to have a subdomain name under that to run their Plex alternative on, so you can get a let's encrypt SSL certificate, and stay safe on the Internet. I don't want the feds snooping into what totally legal Linux ISOs are being shared.

I just don't know how to program at all, so I have no idea how I would go about setting up a system for that. The concept would be to automate it, and have people create an account, then request a DNS name under one of my DNS domains, and have a setting if you want it to have an A record, AAAA record, or cname (if you have a ddns setup). Once the request is in, it would connect to be DNS provider and add the record for you.

The part I'd want to have as a check on the system is to make sure that you're hosting jellyfin or something from the address you submit, to prevent people from using it for unrelated purposes; but even with that.... Do I care of people do that? Probably not. I would limit how many addresses you can have per account.

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AnonomousWolf 9 points a year ago

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Jaysyn 9 points a year ago

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

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LandedGentry 7 points a year ago

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GreenKnight23 6 points a year ago

I don't get why you're being downvoted for spitting facts.

1000001490

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possiblylinux127 2 points a year ago

Until they revoke it

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LandedGentry 1 point a year ago

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possiblylinux127 1 point a year ago

It is a matter of when

Nothing lasts forever

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LandedGentry 1 point a year ago

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merthyr1831 2 points a year ago

They doubled the price lol. And why pay $80 for something that they have the right to gut at any time?

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LandedGentry 0 points a year ago

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TheTechnician27 0 points a year ago

Why pay for anything ever if it’s going to potentially get taken away?

Because it's called "lifetime"? As in the entire point of the product is that it will not ever be taken away with the exception that you close your account? "Why pay for anything if there's nothing enforcing the core premise of the product?" The gardener advertised a "whole-yard mow" for $100, but I've already gotten the area around the driveway, and honestly would it really be that bad if they just stopped right now?

You can talk about odds all you want (although I think around $100 million in VC funding puts those odds squarely in favor of "lifetime" users getting the floor sawed out from under them Looney Tunes-style), but the fact it's even possible is what's deeply disturbing, because it's deliberate. Lifetime's meaning should be unambiguously stipulated in a contract, not inferred. Know why? Because companies out there advertising "lifetime" subscriptions right now have little disclaimers like "approximately five years or so but honestly we don't really know or care lol this license disappears whenever we want it to").

People are assuming it's for the lifetime of your Plex account, but my response is: based on fucking what? Plex on their website doesn't seem to specify this anywhere, even in their terms of service. People asking on their official forums receive responses saying things like "probably for the lifetime of your Plex account" with no sources to anything. I'm not trying to sealion here; I literally can't find a single instance of Plex stating officially in writing or verbally what "lifetime" actually means to the end user. If Plex isn't going to rugpull, why can't they add a couple sentences to their TOS saying something like: "The purchase of a lifetime pass grants the user a non-transferable license for [blah blah] starting from the date of purchase. This license will not be revoked unless 1) the associated account is terminated by the account holder or 2) the aasociated account is terminated by Plex for one or more of the reasons outlined in section [blah]"?

They could, they should, they don't, and you have no good explanation, otherwise you would've offered one by now. They have enough money to afford a legal team that wouldn't overlook that. The answer is that they want to reserve the right to destroy the "lifetime" pass whenever they want. If you can find official documentation from Plex Inc. saying that if I buy a lifetime pass today for $250, the license will only end with the termination of the account, then I'll have no idea why they make this too hard to find, but I'll take back everything else I said in this comment and stop using "lifetime" in scare quotes. I genuinely want to know if they say anything about this anywhere.

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LandedGentry 1 point a year ago

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catloaf 1 point a year ago

I didn't know why anyone who has Plex would pay for a pass. The whole time I used it, I never felt any need for additional features.

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GreenKnight23 7 points a year ago

if you like software you should support it.

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TheTechnician27 0 points a year ago

Absolutely true for FOSS. For freeware? My opinion is that it's money wasted because, unlike FOSS:

I have no way of auditing what I'm putting money toward.
There's no way for the community to keep it going if it stops or goes to shit.
Money given toward proprietary software is money that would be better donated to FOSS whose developers actually give a shit about and make progress toward bettering the world.
Proprietary software isn't worthy of your respect or support. At best, use it if there are no FOSS alternatives, but don't give money to something that could rapidly enshittify at any moment with no recourse and no way or recouperating your money.

Here's Jellyfin's 'How to Contribute' page, incidentally, for no particular reason. Let Plex eat up their $90+ million in venture capital instead of taking money from the little guy and then fall off a cliff into an abyss of enshittification.

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GreenKnight23 -2 points a year ago

I have no way of auditing what I'm putting money toward.

same can be said of FOSS. back channel deals, betrayals, hostile takeovers. all of these things can(and have) happen to FOSS projects. all under a false pretense of "openness".

There's no way for the community to keep it going if it stops or goes to shit.

previous point. it's stupid easy to change licenses and lock out contributors. it's happened several times. although you can technically argue anything before the license change could be forked, the event usually puts a bad taste in the public mouth and contributions dry up anyway. nobody wants to support a project with uncertainty.

Money given toward proprietary software is money that would be better donated to FOSS whose developers actually give a shit about bettering the world.

I've known plenty of FOSS founders that were huge pieces of shit. racist bigoted sexist shitheads. At least with proprietary vendors I can trust they will do anything to continue being fluid/viable.

just want to add, not all FOSS founders are pieces of shit. same can be said for vendors as well.

Proprietary software isn't worthy of your respect or support. At best, use it if there are no FOSS alternatives, but don't give money to something that could rapidly enshittify at any moment with no recourse and no way or recouperating your money.o keep it going if it stops or goes to shit.

why isn't it? if it's a generally better solution don't you owe it to yourself and your "customers" to use the best solution? yes, use FOSS. yes, work with FOSS devs. What do you do when the project refuses to incorporate features you would like, even if you're willing to pay for them? then there's no difference between proprietary and FOSS, right?

enshitification doesn't just affect vendors, it happens to FOSS projects all-the-time. I've personally experienced it when a bookkeeping app removed support for USD. when asked the founder refused to address it and simply stated that they couldn't continue supporting a currency that fuels so much corruption in the world. now tell me, how does that garner my respect or support?

Money given toward proprietary software is money that would be better donated to FOSS whose developers actually give a shit about bettering the world.

see point above. you hold FOSS too highly as if the people who create these projects are impervious to corruption or greed. these are regular people like you or me. they have goals and dreams they want to achieve too, and sometimes the projects they started become vessels for them to achieve those dreams.

Proprietary software isn't worthy of your respect or support. At best, use it if there are no FOSS alternatives, but don't give money to something that could rapidly enshittify at any moment with no recourse and no way or recouperating your money.

You're just repeating yourself now.

my point is, there cannot be light without darkness. FOSS and proprietary software are two halves of the same coin. to be so blinded by principles or to fool yourself with some moral superiority complex is only going to make things worse.

use what you need to solve the problems you have. sometimes that includes using vendor locked solutions. it's not wrong, it's just life.

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blitzen 3 points a year ago

The skip intro/credits feature is nifty, and sonic analysis if you run a music library is worth the purchase price alone.

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jumjummy 2 points a year ago

Besides supporting them, the offline download feature on mobile is amazing for travel.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve tried to watch some downloaded Netflix content, only to realize it had “expired” and no longer worked.

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scrubbles -2 points a year ago

Seriously for the 1000th time I have a plex pass.

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LandedGentry 6 points a year ago

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HappyTimeHarry -3 points a year ago

How mamy months of server costs do you think those lifetime passes cover? If everyone just paid once for a lifetime then plex as a service could no longer function.

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LandedGentry 5 points a year ago

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HappyTimeHarry 1 point a year ago

It will be if you depend on plex for streaming

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LandedGentry 3 points a year ago

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ripcord -2 points a year ago

It's your problem now. This is the kind of thing that happens.

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GreenKnight23 3 points a year ago

yes, but actually no.

Plex pass members can continue sharing.

this isn't directed just at you, but the whole jellyfin community in general.

not sure why, but the jellyfin community seems to be becoming toxic as fuck. I'm getting hard "best friend" vibes from it. if the Plex community leaves for jellyfin it'll be on their own terms. just be welcoming to us and your numbers will grow.

if y'all keep acting like a jealous "guy" friend we're likely to go somewhere else.

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FreedomAdvocate 1 point a year ago

It's not though, because as someone that has a Plex Pass nothing changes for them or anyone who streams from their server.

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LandedGentry 1 point a year ago

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pory 3 points a year ago

Server costs? Plex's serverside only handles auth and verification. Once the client connects to the server, any media is sent peer to peer. There's no stage where the video goes "to plex" or "from plex". Saying plex needs to charge a sub fee to make up for bandwidth is like saying qbittorrent should do the same.

Unless you're talking about the content Plex serves, the ones you have to walk every user of your Plex server through deleting from their apps' homepage.

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HappyTimeHarry 1 point a year ago

Im talking about all of plexs infrastructure, the hosting for the app, providing tunnels for users without port fwding, maintaining user accounts and usage data, emails... A lot goes into running a service like plex besides just "auth and verification"…and thats not even including the staff required to maintain it and developers to keep all the apps updated.

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SomeGuyNamedDave 7 points a year ago

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

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dot 7 points a year ago

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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hoefnix 7 points a year ago

Indeed, no need to have Plex anymore. Will probably set up a family VPN and we can all stream directly from my harddrives, bandwidth is not an issue anyway.

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possiblylinux127 7 points a year ago

People use Plex?

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hlcn 7 points a year ago

It was announced some time ago. I started using Tailscale because of that

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a_baby_duck 6 points a year ago

I switched to Jellyfin recently and I mostly prefer it over Plex, except for lack of organization tools and the goddamn roulette wheel that is seeking. Why is it that seeking defaults to 30 second intervals, requires a click to confirm, and occasionally just jumps to some random point near the beginning of the file? Great software overall, but it's wild to me that this basic playback functionality is so hit or miss.

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TheGreenWizard 6 points a year 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.

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Sinirlan 6 points a year ago

I've used it briefly in the past but with all the streaming services popping up and prices going up I thought it will be a matter of time for Plex to follow suit. So I moved to Jellyfin and never looked back. I kept account (ok I forgot about it) but when I saw that email today in my mailbox I just logged in and deleted it.

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TheFANUM 6 points a year ago

I've been a lifetime Plex pass holder since forever. And that even covers my brother accessing the server? He doesn't even need one?

Seems fair to me for a platform I use daily for a decade.

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jws_shadotak 16 points a year ago

Correct, only the server owner needs the pass.

This has caused a lot of controversy because it was a free feature since Plex started and they're now locking it behind a subscription.

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PP_BOY_ 1 point a year ago

Indeed. The entitlement that some folks online have towards Plex is embarrassing sometimes.

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scrubbles -11 points a year ago

I don't know if you're trying to exclaim that it doesn't cover it, or that it's a fair thing.

I'm a Plex pass holder on my server - and my user does not have a plex pass. From what I'm reading they need to pay a subscription to access my (Plex pass) server.

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PP_BOY_ 14 points a year ago

That isn't true. A Plex pass from the server owner will cover access for all users

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NameTaken 4 points a year ago

Yeah if you already have a lifetime pass then essentially nothing changes. They also did the right thing about giving people a pretty good heads up to purchase a lifetime pass before they raised the price.

Your users may have gotten the notice (my family didn't) but they can ignore it if the server owner has a lifetime pass.

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scrubbles -11 points a year ago

What do you want me to say? I hold a plex pass. I'm the server owner. My users are receiving that email.

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pory 11 points a year ago

Yes, they're being advertised to. In theory this is because they might be clients for non-Pass servers in addition to yours. In practice, Plex could easily verify Plex client accounts that don't run a server or have access to non-Pass servers and skip sending this marketing email to those accounts. What they're doing is trying to convince your users they need to pay a sub fee (even though they don't), because it's free money in Plex's pocket if the users do click the thing and say "welp, still cheaper than netflix"

Any users of your plex-pass verified server do not need to pay anything to keep streaming it. You had to pay a lot more for the lifetime or subscription to enable it, but by doing so any users you share with don't need to pay a dime. You reading this press release and seeing your users get emails and assuming that your users now need to pay for something isn't you being stupid, it's the intended result of their deliberately confusing messaging. One user shrugging and saying "guess it's $7/mo now" is free money for the company.

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i_stole_ur_taco 5 points a year ago

Read the email again. The key word in their marketing slop is “alternatively”. You have a Plex Pass and are the server admin. Your users need to do nothing.

Unfortunately, that does mean I have to respond to messages from all my users asking what that email means and convince them they can just ignore it.

A second “nice” part of this change is that iOS users no longer have to buy the Plex app on the App Store to stream longer than a minute. The app is only like 5 bucks one time, but it was a barrier when trying to convince stubborn people to just fucking TRY my Plex server.

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Evotech 6 points a year ago

Can I still watch for free from my pc to my tv locally through the Plex app?

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Qlin 5 points a year ago

Do you guys know a way on jellyfin to download media to the phone in lower quality/ less storage intense? This is the only thing I miss in my jellyfin instance

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PhAzE 4 points a year ago

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.

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jjlinux 4 points a year ago

Jellyfin. I've been waiting for Plex to do this for years. Enshitification is everywhere.

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Heikki 3 points a year ago

How does this affect people who bought the lifetime service back in 2010?

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cupcakezealot 2 points a year ago

jellyfin should make a plugin that changes their name to remote watch pass

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SmokyOrange 2 points a year ago

I love Plex and will continue using it. I bought a lifetime Plex Pass years ago for and have no regrets. My Plex Pass means none of my watchers have to worry about paying anything.

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AntiBigotBrigade 2 points a year ago

"Your friends" hahaha good joke

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vga 2 points a year ago

What's Plex's use case? Why not just mpv locally?

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Samsy 2 points a year ago

As someone, who started with jellyfin, I never saw the reasons for the existence of Plex. There is no difference and people pay for it?

Hey Plex users, save your money and buy a coffee for the jellyfin team!

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Adam 2 points a year ago

Totally agree with this. Plex has been drifting away from what made it great — the whole “own your media” ethos. I’ve been slowly moving my setup toward Jellyfin too, and honestly, it feels so much more in line with self-hosted values.

If anyone still wants a simple, lightweight media streaming option (especially for Android devices), CloudStream APK has been surprisingly solid no paywalls, no cloud lock-ins.

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Kirk 2 points a year ago

The Remote Watch Pass is only needed if neither you nor the server owner have a Plex pass: https://support.plex.tv/...

When using an affected platform to stream personal video content remotely from a Plex Media Server, then one of the following needs to be true:

The admin account for the Plex Media Server has an active Plex Pass (which also allows remote playback for any other user streaming from that server)

Your account has an active Plex Pass

Your account has an active Remote Watch Pass

The remote playback restrictions do not apply to streaming music content to Plexamp or photos to our Plex Photos app.

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Itdidnttrickledown -1 points a year ago

Some pretty easy work arounds.

Edit: Okay since I got the downvote. The easiest way to overcome this garbage is to make it appear that all traffic is coming from the local network. This is really trivial these days. Just use a a tunnel/vpn. I recommend wireguard for how simple the client operates. The client is available for many platforms including crapple devices and android.

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Jimmycakes -2 points a year 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.

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Couldbealeotard -4 points a year ago

OP couldn't comprehend an email, and when everyone tried to reassure them that nothing for them has changed they doubled down. The closest thing to justification I can figure is "all my clients are borderline illiterate as well and it upset them".

How in the world could you be upset that a product you already paid for is not providing that specific feature for free anymore. They've even made the phone software free!

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pulido -5 points a year ago

https://hydrahd.sh/

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LandedGentry -5 points a year ago

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TrickDacy -5 points a year ago

Every time one of these gets posted I say "wait what? That was free before??"

This is the kind of feature I think is reasonable to charge for. As were the others people were complaining about. Plex lifetime pass is a one time fee.

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selfhosted

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A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

Detailed Rules Post

Be civil.
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Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or readme if you're providing a link.
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Promotion posts require active participation, with an account that is at least 30 days old. F/LOSS without a paywall has exceptions, with requirements. See the rules link for details. Tags [CBH] or [AIP] are required, see the links in Rule 8 for details.
AI-related discussions and AI-involved promotional posts have additional requirements for tagging, as noted in Rule 7 and the AI & Promotional Post Expanded Rules post, and find example disclosures here.

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