- cross-posted to:
- selfhosted@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- selfhosted@lemmy.world
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.
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Your users can still stream your content because you have plex pass. This is just notifying everyone who’s on a free account.
Except it notified everyone whether their server has a pass or not. In other words, people who don’t need to buy a streaming pass were just told they have to buy a streaming pass.
How is that better? Why is anyone paying to stream your own content?
Because we should support developers.
You’re right. We should support developers.
Here’s Jellyfin’s ‘How to Contribute’ page.
The $90 million in venture capital can nourish the leeches at Plex just fine.
Well no, they notified everyone, and my users freaked out, rightfully so. One immediately uninstalled the app because of it. So, that trust is just gone. Then second, I’m angry that they’re removing functionality that has been free for a decade for… reasons? As I explain elsewhere, there’s negligible cloud overhead for it. If this was a new feature that was locked behind plexpass or something - fine. Removing functionality I can’t get behind. Sure, my server would keep working, but this is the last straw for me. It’s obvious what’s happening over there, and my users don’t trust it. So I’m out.
In case people aren’t clear on what’s happening, here is a graphic that illustrates what’s happening.
I have never used plex, and never will because I like my privacy, but that 20 usd a year does not sound much. thats less than 2 usd a month
People are angry because everyone’s spent too much time on social media and are used to assuming the worst and flying off the handle.
I bought a lifetime plex pass for like $80 in 2016… is Plex getting more annoying? Yes. But is this a huge affront? No.
and what the hell do they think they deserve my money for anyway? What feature have they brought server owners over the last… 2 or 3 years? Seriously what have they done for us? Last thing I remember is credit skip - which was years ago now.
Wait they’re charging people for the privilege of using one’s hardware and bandwidth to share to friends??
Only if the server owner does not have a Plex pass.
OP HAS a plex pass
I’m very aware, that’s why I said that. OP’s users are unaffected. Everyone got the email. It doesn’t mean that everyone is affected.
If I’m paying for a pass, and my users are getting emails that they need to sign up for a paid account, you better believe I’m getting annoyed. That’s a plain cash grab.
I don’t deny that they should’ve only sent it to affected users. But it’s an important thing to point out. In another thread, OP argued with multiple people because they thought the users would have to pay, before finally stating that even if the users didn’t have to pay, it was upsetting that the emails were sent.
Thus my comment about it not affecting users where the server owner had Plex Pass. Both Plex and OP were mistaken imo.
Correct! Having users connect to your server and your hardware is now a cloud service according to them.
It IS a cloud service. You should be smart enough to understand why.
How many manual connections have you had to set up for your users? That’s right, none. Why? Because Plex does it for you. That’s that cloud part that you are so desperately ignoring.
It’s literally just pointing them to my IP. It’s a bit of networking. How many manual connections have I set up? Most of them. I have DNS. I opened up 32400. That’s also all I had to do to get streaming to work with Jellyfin. Literally the only difference in getting Jellyfin “remote streaming” up and running is giving my users their username, password, and (DNS or IP) address.
That’s literally all plex is doing. It’s a dynamic DNS service, that tells your users how to connect to you for you. DynDNS or any dynamic DNS service can do that for you for like, 2 dollars a year, if not for free - or you can pay for a static IP. If someone can run a plex server, then they have enough networking knowledge to be able to set up dynamic dns.
https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/5415
Yeah, you should stop that right now.
Two of my favorites are streaming without authentication and the fact that it is possible for a non-user to create a user and then edit other users.
Plex works even without DDNS and port forwarding. What you are talking about is otherwise not possible for people with restrictive firewalls or with CGNAT.
I agree with you that if you expose the service through the internet, then yes, it’s just a DDNS remapping and their costs are tiny, but if you don’t it does go through their infra.
It does, and I concede that, but they do nag you constantly about it. And honestly, if that was the case then I’d say they could charge on that if they were clear why they had to all of a sudden after 10 years, but then I would say it should just be a charge to use their relay network, and have it be easily opt-out able. Maybe a guide on how to set it up yourself
Subtitle audio sync just went live.
Just buy a Plex Pass, damn. If you really like the software and it does everything you want, but you just want all the features for free then move to Emby or Jellyfin or whatever. I do hear Emby and Jellyfin have some good qualities but I haven’t tried them myself.
Personally, the lifetime Plex Pass was one of my best purchases ever, but if you’re against paying for it, then you do you.
I have a plex pass.
So then all the users of your server are fine, as the email states.
EDIT: Downvote if you want but that’s literally the fourth paragraph of the email you posted.
Even if I wasn’t a Plex pass holder, they’re removing functionality. How do you not see that that is unacceptable? If they need income they can add new functionality that’s paid but this is something that was free before, and is now no longer free. Worse yet, it’s my server, I don’t know how they need 7 dollars a month for any infrastructure they have to support it when I do the heavy compute and streaming myself.
It’s absolutely just greedy. They could have charged for that new UI they released. Or any new feature. They’re charging for things that either cost them pennies, or worse yet probably nothing.
And we’re not even talking about how with my Plex pass they’re still getting emails pushing them to join and how scummy that is
I could see how you could see that, but previously if you weren’t a Plex Pass holder, you had to pay a one time fee to activate the Plex app to steam for more than 60 seconds (IIRC) remotely. How is this any different? If anything, it makes it cheaper because of the server owner is a Plex Pass holder, none of their users need to pay anything, versus today where it’s $5 per device unless you’re in a Plex Home covered by a Plex Pass.
what’s cheaper is leaving the platform that’s trying to shakedown my users for $7 a month for a service that has been free for them for years. If they couldn’t tell the difference, then they shouldn’t have sent the email.
what’s cheaper is leaving the platform that’s trying to shakedown my users for $7 a month for a service that has been free for them for years. If they couldn’t tell the difference, then they shouldn’t have sent the email.
Or they can still just pay the $5 permanent activation in Google Play or Apple App Store. You know, the same one they’ve always needed.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/203868088-unlocking-or-activating-plex-for-android/
All the Remote Pass gets you is streaming from any Plex server you have access to, independent of if the server owner has a Plex Pass. If the server owner does, the remote streaming user doesn’t need to buy anything.
Plex requiring a centralized accounts for self hosting was the bullshit I needed to move to Jellyfin and I never looked back.
Charging to share your own content? Hah!
If you don’t want the centralized auth, then yes, find a solution that works for your needs. Glad you were able to.
I didn’t like that auth change, but stuck with it and long-term overall it’s been a non-issue for me and my users. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a deal-breaker for others.
“Just hand over your money because otherwise you don’t deserve these features”
If you really like the software, find a way to contribute however you can.
Walled gardens and greed are value destroying.
It’s all great until they eventually revoke your lifetime pass too and make it a subscription. If you think corporations won’t do something scummy like that I have a bridge to sell to you.
Call me when it happens. Until then, that’s just speculation masquerading as a justification.
My lifetime pass from 2017 for $100 still works just the same as the day I bought it. I’m almost down to $1 per month for my overall costs. It’s ludicrously cheap compared to other entertainment options.
Deleted my Plex account as soon as I got this email, using the account link in said email, so hopefully they see the connection.
I’m all for switching to FOSS alternatives but this is like complaining that video game companies charge you for playing games on your own computer. Maybe they’re just struggling financially.
More like complaining if a game company comes back to make your game worse after you paid.
“Yea I know you were enjoying Elden Ring and paid for it and host the multiplayer server yourself, but for reasons, all endgame content is going to require players to login and verify a subscription status to play online. Also greatsword have been depreciated and will be relaunched as a separate client: Elden Sword.”
bingo. “Sorry, we know that this game was completely on your computer, but every time you start the main screen the update of the day actually hits our servers and costs us money. About 4 cents a day, but it adds up! No of course you can’t just disable that, instead you will now need to pay us $5 a month to continue access. - Your friends.”
They sent the same message out months ago, and sent it again recently to all users. Nothing has changed since the first email. Plex pass owners that run a server are fine and can still stream to their users.
I guess lots of people missed or didn’t get the first message/outrage on fediverse the first time it happened.
Took me a bit to realise people are still talking about the same thing and that this isn’t new.
I’ll move over to jellyfin once the features ease of use and security parity is there. Or if Plex becomes a security issue by being hosted in the states. Until then I’m going to keep milking my Plex pass lifetime account from 10 years ago.
I’ve been trying it out for a few months. Parity is there. This is what finally convinced me it was time to leave. I’m a plex pass lifetime member, but I don’t like features that have been free for years suddenly requiring a monthly subscription. It’s time.
I can agree with you that I love free software. But I’ve always been aware that it’s not. I’ll be pissed if they paywall new things behind a new subscription even for lifetime members though.
I was really close to setting aside time to mess with jellyfin but a lot of people on the fediverse have been raising alarms about security issues if you are sharing with others over the web. I can’t comprehend what they are but it’s put that project on pause since everyone is happy with the Plex server right now.
Honestly what I’ve seen is that most of the security stuff is fairly overhyped. If you do even the bare minimum, like put it behind a reverse proxy, you’re going to more than likely be fine
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I have a Plex Pass and my users are still getting this.
To be crystal clear to anyone getting this email: if the server admin has a Plex Pass, users need to do nothing to continue as normal. The streaming pass is only for users who aren’t connecting to a server that has a Plex Pass.
What I find shitty about this is that it’s being indiscriminately sent to every Plex account. There’s bound to be lots of people who don’t understand what this means who will be tricked into buying a streaming pass they don’t need at all. I’ve been getting messages from my users all day asking wtf is going on, and I’m getting tired of trying to convince them to just ignore the email.
I guess if they know that the user only connects to one server that has a plex pass then they can filter down the email, the thing that keeps me from trying to move to jellyfin yet is that most of my users use multiple servers as a lot of my friends host plex so we cross share to get more coverage
WAIT
WHAT?
I was reading your comment and the just came in the inbox. Lol I don’t even use plex at this point.
That’s where my head was. If anything, it threw all of my users into a panic, thinking that they had to suddenly start paying. I had a couple immediately uninstall the apps. I don’t blame them, the way it was worded it was pretty much pushing them that they had to. Plex undid years worth of trust right there with them.
What gets me is that they didn’t message plex pass holders about this first. I would have gladly let my users know that they need to do nothing. Instead I’m fielding all kinds of panicked messages.
Same. Their wording was obviously meant to push them into just buying the membership. They chose language that sounded like you have to buy it ~or talk to your server admin~.
It should have been “Talk with your server owner, <<Server owner name>> to see if you need to purchase a subscription or not”. Language like that would be very clear - but they chose not to do that.
Or even better. <<ServerName>>, which is ran by <<ServerOwner>> already has a plex pass subscription, you can continue watching without a subscription! Gee, how nice that would have been.
I asked around a bit, but so far none of my users have recieved an email. Other people with their own server (and a plex pass) also haven’t gotten any complains. But I pretty much only have two types of users, own server + plex pass or no pass but almost certainly only connected to my server (mostly family).
It seems the e-mails were quite selectivly send out only to people that were actually affected by the change.
Who do you think it should be sent to? Only server owners?
Given Plex’s users, I think it’s appropriate to notify everyone with a Plex account for changes like that. No issue there.
What I take issue with is that email. It’s at best lazy and at worst manipulative. It’s worded like “if you stream media you need to buy this new pass”. Ok, clear. This free app I use now costs money.
But then they slap on “alternatively, if you connect to a server with a Plex Pass don’t worry about it”. But that’s not something the majority of consume-only users are going to understand. I have about 15 regular users and the only one who knew what that meant was the one who runs their own Plex server.
jellyfin noises intensify
Ok, how do you access Jellyfin remotely?
Well you have to setup wireguard or a vpn tunnel to trick your device to thinking it’s on the same local network as your server.
Ok, how do you think you can avoid paying Plex’s remote streaming if you really really don’t want to just buy a lifetime Plex pass?
I’ve got a lifetime plex pass I picked up on a deal ages ago; at this point it’s more that I don’t like the direction that plex is taking the platform, and policies like this fall under that dislike.
Previously they charged unlock fees to every user of their android and iOS apps no matter what. Now those fees are gone and you just have to pay for remote streaming if the server owner doesn’t have a Plex pass.
I really don’t see any problem with this. It’s just shifting pricing from all users to just users who aren’t paying for a Plex pass.
Ok, how do you access Jellyfin remotely?
WireGuard. VPN’s are more than just hiding your IP behind another country, they allow you to access resources that are not available to the world-wide-web.
Yes, now keep going with that train of thought and imagine what would happen if you put Plex behind the same wireguard setup. Specifically whether or not Plex would consider that local or remote streaming.
plex should consider that local, because now your traffic goes through that network, and reaches computers and services on that network. except if it relies on broadcasts, because wireguard does not forward broadcasts, but even with jellyfin that only affects automatic server discovery and DLNA, if you type in the URL it will work
Yes, so then OPs issue with Plex charging for remote streaming are irrelevant.
By nature of setting up Wireguard for Jellyfin, you’ve eliminated the entire purpose of switching to Jellyfin in the first place.
you’ve eliminated the entire purpose of switching to Jellyfin in the first place.
if we are only looking at this issue, then yes
Outside of ideological reasons or fears of further enshittification, is there anything Jellyfin does better? (Honest question)
Apologies I neglected to the read your entire comment, all in all I suspect it’ll be a logistical nightmare for Plex.
Yeah, my only point is just that if you’re going to switch to jellyfin because of this, you’re going to have to setup wireguard, at which point you’ve circumvented the original issue that made you go to Jellyfin.
If you really can’t stand Plex on an ideological basis that’s one thing, but I dont think most people here realize the above about wireguard.
its not tricking your device, that’s how you maintain a connection to your home network. you don’t even need to send all traffic through the tunnel, most wireguard apps can do split tunneling per app.
setting up wireguard is really not that hard, and you don’t even need to update it because it’s in the kernel.
Ok, how do you think you can avoid paying Plex’s remote streaming if you really really don’t want to just buy a lifetime Plex pass?
with wireguard.
or open up 80 and 443 and let the fun begin if you are adventurous.
I think you’re missing my point. What will Plex see your streaming as if it’s behind wireguard: local, or remote?
I put my bets on local
So then OPs complaints about charging for remote streaming are irrelevant…
The vpn is only needed for if
A. Your behind a CGNat
B. On a dynamnic ip and dont want to setup a dyndns.
C. isolating your network from the outside for security reasons.
Yes, but the point is that if you setup Wireguard then your Plex streaming is now local and free.
The question is… how to get devices that dont support wireguard to work?
why can’t you expose it like Plex? You can do it… I don’t get your comment
Just open the right ports or config a reverse proxy 🤔. No need for a VPN
Understandable, then I guess you can still try to reverse proxy it with an unknown route like
myserver.com/ld5S7fR1Z4D7ZlR/which isn’t ideal but might still be a way. Not sure if that’s really secure though, but at least it should prevent scrapingIP whitelisting might also be a thing, but it’s a pain to setup and the VPN solution might be easier 👀
Let’s hope they address those issues.
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Does jellyfin let you set up different accounts for remote users so they can keep track of where they are in a tv series (and not give them admin functions?)
Yes
Ok, ok that’s solid.
Does it have “library sharing” so one wouldn’t have to login/logout to browse between my own media on my server and media a friend is sharing with me from their server?
They’re totally different servers. You have to log in to each, but you don’t have to log out of one to log in to the other.
I currently have three up in my browser, each in a browser tab, observing that my siblings and friend who self-host are all into some campy shit. I love it.
I’ll need to take it for a test spin, specifically what the experience is through whatever app they’ve got to run through a tv.
My brother-in-law both share our libraries with a set of people who have accessibility concerns. The Plex interface on a tv blends our two libraries relatively easily for those people. We have the redundancy of the two servers.
For me it isn’t about what I can do, it’s what can the person who struggles the most with what we already have set up get going. I pretty desperately want to move to Jellyfin (already have the Plex pass, so just for ideological reasons) but I’m not going to leave any of my people behind in the process. This is why I’m so hyper fixated on the case of UX for people accessing through a TV app where someone has access to multiple shared libraries.
Setup for remote access by the host is more work, ofc. Remote access on users end can be more difficult depending on how the host sets things up.
Most popular freebie approach seems to be tailscale VPN. Which requires remote users to connect through the Tailscale VPN. And for the host the free Tailscale option has a cap of 3 users. There is probably a learning curve and perhaps frustration for a low-comfort-with-tech type person.
Requires some money but I think the easiest remote user experience is Cloud Flare. This is what my brother does, so I haven’t seen it from his end, but on my end it is very easy to access as a user.
Both have so many help guides online, Tailscale or Cloud Flare.
I might be missing something, by why couldn’t they just directly connect to my machine via my domain name?
No, each server is accessed separately. You can swap between servers easily, but there is no central way to browse all of your servers simultaneously. Jellyfin was designed specifically to rebel against Plex’s centralization, so that’s not a feature they’re ever likely to implement. There are ways to sync your watch history between servers, but it’s using third-party plugins.
I don’t see a technical reason why a client couldn’t log in to multiple remotes to pull and aggregate content through a single interface. No “central” server is required, so if this isn’t an existing feature, I don’t think implementing it breaks any kind of ideology goal on that.
Yup!
All I know is I’ve been told over and over and over that Plex is better than Jellyfin because of reasons, so this latest move won’t have me changing my mind!
I’ve used both and plex is definitely better at many things, they just might not be worth it for everyone.
If jellyfin is working for you there probably isn’t a reason to switch.
I’m not gonna deny that there are definitely lots of Plex fanboys, but there are also definitely a number of issues that legitimately makes it hard to switch.
For example right now, I can cast from Plex to my Chromecast. In Jellyfin, the cast menu just shows “Play on my device”. Afaik the only alternate app that also supports Chromecast is streamyfin, which seems to be in beta because the cast menu shows icons for my Chromecasts but no name and won’t let me select them.
Plex user from way back. Gave them up, forgot why, but lemmy woke me up. Plex is charging for what exactly? And why would I continue when Jellyfin is every bit as easy and free? I feel like I’m missing something.
(And yes, I got the implied /s. Most of lemmy is very literal, autistic even, missed it.)
“Yes they are your files on your hardware in your home using your internet bandwitdh. But uh… fuck you.”
Glad I switched to Jellyfin last year.
