I bought into this program and services that came with it only 4 years ago, but in the last 2 days I have been brought to the conclusion that Plex really doesn’t care about us as customers, we are just users that will be told what we want.
I paid for this program so I could truly have all MY MEDIA in one place. I knew it wasn’t going to include Comics (or an e-reader of any kind) or Audiobook Support for awhile (but they gave us a carrot by allowing us to “Vote for features you’d like to see”) but that was all a lie I guess, just to get us to spend the money so they can give us things we didn’t ask for like Plex Arcade, Free Tv and Movies and the oh so popular Discover. BTW did anyone vote for these things? (I truly would like to know, I searched and couldn’t fined links to any of them)
I have said it before, I thought Plex was great, I could finally have to open only one app on all my devices to get to MY MEDIA! All My Movies, My Tv Shows, My Live Tv, My Pictures, My Podcasts in one place, synced across multiple devices. Want to continue your episode on a different device? Go ahead. Want to listen to your podcast in your house and continue in the car? Sure can buddy! Want to have a party with friends in another location and watch that movie you’ve all been dying to see together? We got you fam! Want to let your family and friends see those pictures of how fast the kids are growing? Can do!
What a waste of my time Please Plex enjoy your addition to the MAIN STREAM CROWD and keep pushing away the people who really believed in what you started out as, a program for YOUR MEDIA! Now just another app for Advertised Content Revenue.
Since I now have to go elsewhere for my Podcasts and not wanting to be bombarded with other streaming apps content every time I search for something on MY server, might as well move over completely to JellyFin.
Are Lifetime Plex Passes available for partial refunds?
I love the contrast between the people who complained when podcasts were added 3 years ago to the people who are now complaining that it is discontinued.
Different groups of people. Can’t please everyone.
Also, there is nothing preventing you from saving podcasts on your own server with a music library. Only Plex’s online podcast service is ending.
I was going to say something similar - “can’t please anybody”. But like, that’s OK. I’m OK with apps being opinionated - try things, keep them if they work, remove them if they don’t “fit” any more.
Personally, I thought Arcade was really weird. I never used Podcasts or Web Shows myself. I don’t want a document reader. I want a better solution for pictures, but it wasn’t Plex. Better Audiobook support would be nice, but I’m not sure there’s metadata to support it - so I’m not going to hold my breath.
Still, it hurts when something you used gets removed.
The normal price is $5/month, so … what refund would make sense?
The last sentence in that announcement is a bit on the chin …
OK, Plex have made it clear where they are headed but a little sensitivity would have been smart with all the discussion going on around Discover etc atm…
I do not think it’s fair to trivialize a paying customer’s rant about losing a feature they were paying for. Let them rant and have their say, after all they’re paying for it. Secondly, i think you’re mischaracterising the tone of the comments I have read in that reddit thread which have more to do with how limited functionality Plex podcasts had compared to the apps most posters were using at that time. If you were not using podcasts and that didn’t affect you, good for you, but no need to patronize other customers. I thought this post required a rebuttal. Thanks.
I’d get it if the shade was thrown at a non-paying customer who has invested nothing in Plex, let’s face it, a lot of customers would get by without a Plex pass if we’re going to disaggregate between what we actually pay for and what we don’t. Collectively, most of us pay to support a company like Plex because it is doing a good thing and we also buy into their strategy. When the company falls short of that, a customer is allowed the leeway to vent and express their frustrations without Plex apologists coming here and patronizing them. It’s not right. Come at this thread with a problem solving mindset and say, i get your frustrations, here is what you can do. Try 1,2,3 etc. Otherwise it’s just better to zip it.
I’m not sure who that was directed at but if it was me, you need to read my first post in this thread.
Also, I have only seen you attack people in here, not problem solve like you suggested ?
I’ve been a Plexpass holder since 2013 and a customer before that. I’ve seen stuff added and taken away by Plex. It is crap when stuff gets dropped but it is going to happen, especially when a feature like this probably wasn’t used by many.
Well, despite Spotify shutting down its own podcast studio, they sure as hell spent money they didn’t really have but some how scooped up from all the investment money from their couches to fund the whole podcast curation within Spotify and also managed to scoop up talking head Rogan. Podcasts aren’t dead. In fact, every celebrity now has a podcast nowadays.
The only thing Plex had to do was make sure it was able to allow importing, curation, offline downloading , and make sure their api syncs with all the other podcast .rss feed systems. Like, literally all the other apps do that, perhaps not as well as say pocket casts, but that’s where Plex should have excelled!
Literally, podcasts should have been ROCK SOLID for Plex to have gotten accomplished given it doesn’t need high audio attention like music does. Plex seriously dropped the ball years ago and just when podcasts hit the peak of being mainstream, Plex failed to meet that mark and now, ya know what, they deserve to be hit in the groin. We as customers waited and waited patiently for a lot of these features to be implemented.
Personally, I really think they don’t have a team good enough to solve the download mechanism for Plex app to handle Music, Podcasts, and Movies, so the answer right now is to shutdown what has been the most problematic for them and unfortunately Podcasts got murdered.
@SwiftPanda16 Let me know if you find my name anywhere related to being upset by them adding Podcast to Plex. As I said in my rant, I wanted one app to access it all. Not be forced to use a different app.
This is true, but Plex was sold to me as a one stop APP to access all my media! When they added Podcasts it was one step closer to being complete. The contrast of Plex saying “we are adding a hub for you to discover more ways to watch what you want, but not listen to what you want” seems contradictory. Then add in this BS into the post
The good news is that most of your favorite Web Shows (and more!) will live on in other areas of the Plex app. For the latest movie and TV trailers, and where to stream everything whether it’s on Plex or not, be sure to check out our brand new Discover section . To get your daily fix of news, tech and gaming, cooking, travel, classic films, and more (including FailArmy, of course), be sure to check out our lineup of awesome, free Live TV channels . There’s truly something for everyone! …
We’re big podcast fans here at Plex,…
Again, we’re sorry for the inconvenience, thanks for using Web Shows and Podcasts, and we hope to see you around Discover and Live TV soon!
A pity that it didn’t have a supporter like Plexamp has Elan …
So many things have come and gone since I started using Plex a decade ago.
To be honest, it is only PMS and client apps that keep me here. If those two get crippled (intentionally or unintentionally eg like the Discover function) or are retired, I’m done.
In the end, I get that it takes time and money to maintain the code, and then worse even the bandwidth (since its a “cloud” feature not a server feature).
so, why not migrate it to the server and let the local admins maintain the podcast libraries and update as needed, it would take the stress away from their own servers and since the code base already exists it wouldn’t go completely to waste!
And yes I get it it would still take man hours to implement it locally on the server and give the UI tools to manage it from the server side, for all I care make it read the sources from a .json file somewhere on the filesystem… I think this would a decent compromise minimising the need to develop new UIs.
I use itunes for that. Itunes automatically downloads the new episodes and has them in a separate folder on your system, so you can just create a library from that separate folder.
I can follow the rant of the OP, I have been using Plex for a very long time now and bought a lifetime Plex Pass as soon as they introduced syncing. For me, Plex has been a great way to access my media, the only thing missing in my eyes is support for books/comics. It’s been one of the most voted feature suggestions but there has been nothing from the Plex company to comment on this feature request in all those years. At the same time they add new features that no one requested (or at least a lot less people compared to the books/comics request)
I don’t see your streaming services as value added. I was trying to watch a movie called Snowpiercer on your streaming service, and the number of commercials made it unwatchable. I found another streaming service (TubiTV) that was free so that I was able to watch that movie with far less commercials. Unless that can be improved, I suggest you use your resources elsewhere.
When advancing or rewinding a DVR recorded show, the elapsed time indicator at the bottom appears wildly in-accurate. It would be much better if you could duplicate the method used on Philo, where the frames of the program are in miniature on the timeline, but you can see the frames advance or rewind so that you can pick the exact point to resume the DVR playback.
We have a WD My Cloud EX4100 NAS. That’s where the DVR is based and we have a SiliconDust tuner for OTA signals. DVR playback on a TV can cause the Plex DVR to lose track and skip to the end of the recorded show. Very annoying. We have noticed that this does not happen as much when we utilize the Plex App on a XBOX. This appears to happen more when there was a marginal OTA signal condition when the show was recording. Is there a way to make your apps more resilient to signal drop-outs?
Appreciate if someone could get back to me on these items. Thanks. - Jim
angers me to no end.
Please Plex enjoy your addition to the MAIN STREAM CROWD and keep pushing away the people who really believed in what you started out as, a program for YOUR MEDIA! Now just another app for Advertised Content Revenue.
It was rhetorical, I was just pissed off. I feel I’ve gotten more than my money’s worth over the years!