@Blkbyrd - Thank you for your unwarranted and unasked for opinions about me, my expirience and perceived activity in the cummunity. I decided to leave it a few days to responde to you (something you might think of doing in the future) to make my response to you as complete and clear as possible.
“You really should change the title of your post as it’s misleading and disingenuous. Downloads is in no way exploiting anyone. I’m sorry that Plex hopes to earn a small sum of money for providing this service to you for nothing at its core.”
Your point of view seems to be skewed and appears to be responding out of context of this thread. The exploitation comes from charging users who do not own a Plex server for the use of this feature on server from which content is shared. This is different from the current iteration of the sync feature. Originally the Sync feature was only available to PlexPass Subscribers and Plex decided to make it available to everyone. Now they are back tracking on this.
“Plex is a 100% viable platform without ever putting a dime into it.”
I agree that the basic feature set is great, depending on your use case. But if you already pay for a Plex Pass to unlock features on your server then it is reasonable to expect that the features on my server I Pay for are available to my shared users.
“All they ask is for some more advanced features that take work on the back end from them that people contribute a little money, that is not exploitation.”
As a Plex Pass subcriber I should be able to share content on my server and the associated feature sets without the end user being shared with having to pay any extra than purchasing the Plex App on their device (iOS and Android devices specifically). Plex already gets a single payment for the app if the shared user does not have their own Plex Pass already. Any more than that seems unreasonable.
“Plex is still a business after all”
Correct and as a paying customer I have been exasperated by their lack of direct support. A post in a public form where there is no garuntee of a response from anyone that works at Plex is not a proper support environement for business of the size that Plex has grown and continues to grow into. Their responses of late have improved as MODs are instroduced, but from what I have gathered some (not all) of the MODs are most likely not on the Plex Payroll and do this as sideline in their spare time. Granted there are some great cummunity memembers that are willing to help with many providing excellent advice, but this type of support model really only suits small businesses. When you start charging to service an end user will expecrt a certing level of support should any part of that service stop working or not work as intended. A proper method of directly requesting support is, in my opinion, needed for Server owners at a minimum.
“Also I don’t know anyone who calls themselves a “beta tester” yet doesn’t interact with the community at all. You said yourself that you spend very little time on the forums, and it seems you post almost never. So you probably shouldn’t call yourself a beta tester, and also you probably shouldn’t be running beta branches of software that you aren’t actively engaged in.”
There are multiple method of reporting issues when Beta testing and posting in a forum is just one. That I have not posted often in these forums is not a reason to assume I have not played my part when using beta release branches.
“With the numerous beta programs I have participated in all the way from small niche projects like little Android apps to large ones like the initial Google Music beta and they all used platforms like this to convey information back and forth. Its important to engage with it because as a tester the feedback is important to the company, and the results of that data are important to the testers.”
Your comment about participation for beta testers is correct. But your statement feels like an attack targeted at me speficially based on assumptions. Did I offend you in someway? Did you feel like I was unreasonable in my replies or my opinions? I am sure if the Plex MODs or DEVs wanted to speak to me about them that they are fully capable of doing so and don’t require your “assistance”.
“As for not being notified, I don’t know how you didn’t know unless you choose to ignore every place that it was shown. There were forum posts like the one shared earlier, discussions about it on Reddit, and update notes when you updated your apps. Hell there was an announcement on the server page. I don’t know how this isn’t satisfactory unless you expect them to come to your house and tell you.”
Posting about new developing features in a sub thread of the Plex Community Forums seems logical. But it does require that all beta testers constantly monitor this sub forum to determine if there is anything to test. Not unreasonable but also not surprising that the posts can be missed.
Why would I look for an anouncement about new client side features in the “server page”? Why would anyone expect that to be a thing?
How would I know to look at a 3rd party unofficial forum for a notification about new features in a beta branch of a client app? Thats a bit like me asking you to be aware of a notification posted in another galaxy that states that the earth is being to be demolished to make way for a hypserspace bypass and not tell you where the notificaiton is or when to look for it. Seems unreasonable.
Granted there may have been notifications in the beta client udpate notes I may have missed. But as the first one that mentions it TestFlight is over 70 days old I cannot determine that now.
I could have looked at the Plex forums but the iOS Announment thread does not include beta updates (Plex for iOS - #156 by Stevenson-Price)
and the first mention of Downloads is on August 3rd. If you view this post from the point of view that you knew that the term “Downloads” is directly referencing the replacement of the Plex Sync feature instead of the ability to download content from the webUI (which has been present for so long I cannot recall when it was implemented) then yeah I could see that as an annoucement. But thats a stretch.
Unless I am missing something I do not see sub forums related to Beta relases in the Annoucement Forum.
Additionally, unless I really missing it, I can only see annoucement threads for Roku, Android TV and Android Mobile devies in the testing/Player Betas sub forums. Where is the iOS Thread?
Addditionally the “Beta HomePage” link listed in TestFlight app links to the main plex.tv page which does not mention annoucements for Beta update releases.
"I think the sum of this is that you likely would have avoided your issue by being a little proactive and spending some time on the forums or the Reddit community like “beta testers” do.
Apart from your response being full of assumptions it also suggests that I should have known that Plex was going to announce a new feature before it was announced and gone looking for it. Are you part Vogon or something?
Also based on your response I am making an assumption (which is probably wrong because I know nothing about you) that you have 24 hours a day 7 days a week to monitor these locations for annoucements, fully test each and every feature and then log issues on the Plex forums, Reddit and anywhere else you might frequent. I am glad if my assumptions are true that you have that time. I do not and resent the assumption that I do. Like most of the beta testers here I need to work to earn money and have other responsabilities which prevent me from doing that.
“As someone who runs a fairly large server with a good number of users I personally feel as though it is my responsibility to proactively manage my server and keep my users updated. Maybe you should try a little of that also.”
Wow! I didn’t realise people still road a high horse like that any more. How large your server is and how many users you have is irrelevant to this thread and your assunmptions about me. You have no idea about the amount of work I have and continue to put in to my servers (yes multiple), how many people I share content from these servers with or how proactive I am in supporting them. That I posted about this new feature as soon as I found out about it, tested and fixed the issues I had with it and also showed I am concerend about not being able to support this new feature when my shared users have to pay for it just makes your assumed statement about me more like an attack than constructive criticism.
Finally, if I could give you some advice. From now and in the future please refrain from replying to posts where you are not able to provide positive and helpful responses. Making assumptions and attacking those who you perceive as not confirming to you own ideals does not make this community any better and potentially loses you any respect that the community member you are replying to may have afforded you.
