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.
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.
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.