Yes, because of this change and how this is being presented then information between accounts - “friends” - is being shared unintentionally and unexpectedly because of this change with how account functions and features used to work for almost the entire existence of Plex.
Not really speaking at you directly here, but lots of admins don’t share content and might have the same question and might not be familiar with how significant of a change this is for those who do share content. Since you’ve stated you don’t have any sharing functions enabled and haven’t used them and aren’t familiar with them, then these changes don’t really impact you or others who don’t share their library with anybody; other than some GUI elements they might see and not use.
In the past several years, server admins could share media content with others (managed users, inviting other Plex accounts, etc). All that did was allow that individual to access the admin’s media - how Plex as a client app acted for them was pretty much up to the user. Sharing a library as an admin to someone else meant that’s all it did - they could access the content.
Only the server admin could see or know anything about the people accessing their content. User accounts couldn’t see each others activity and couldn’t see the admin’s activity or even know there was anybody else accessing the server(s) content. Every user was siloed from each other.
Server admins had control over that access both in content (using labels or separate libraries or other controls) and technical functions (like bandwidth limiting and transcoding triggers) and as such there was some trust between a user and an admin in that regard but there was an invite process that came up between the user and the admin that was pretty clear and personal.
Now though, the account access controls for a server\client management are also a social network function managed by Plex the company. A change that people reading the options presented about it are likely to misunderstand the impacts of their choices - as far as they know they don’t have any “friends”… they’ve never “friended” anybody, including the admin.
These new options make it possible for users connected to a server - or multiple servers - who never knew anything about each other to see and access history and watch lists of not just that server content but if they linked their Netflix, Prime or HBO Max to their account using other Discover features that would show up as well too. Since all accounts were added as “friends” of the server admin(s) then every account on the server is technically also a “friend of a friend” as well which could make that sharing even more expansive than expected.
These settings for the new social network profile - which are separate from your account settings - are in the Plex web settings options, not the client app options (and not the local web options from the server either). So many people who aren’t server admins themselves never access Plex via web. They only use the client apps since you can setup and get going with Plex all from the app. So these privacy settings being presented and configured for a new data sharing function via the client app can’t be managed via the client. That’s disingenuous for various reasons; Plex could have updated the apps to align with these changes.
Additionally, this change around Plex accounts from simply “account access for content” to “content use and sharing as a social network” is a very significant change for the platform as a whole. The direction of Plex as a company is definitely transitioning from a media center solution to “entertainment concierge” as their front page now states. The local media stuff is way down that list now but was the foundation and core function of Plex for many years (and before that the original software that was forked to become “Plex” - Plex didn’t build itself from scratch).
These Discover features are part of that change and isn’t necessarily a bad thing - I can see how they’d be useful for people - but how it’s being handled is coming into conflict with that core functionality and history and personally I think it’s being unnecessarily mishandled and it feels intentional and disrespectful to the community and customers that Plex relied on to get to where it is today.
Many might not realize Plex was founded on a community software project long ago - in the before times - and really Plex as a company exists because the users helped support it in various ways. A good example is the fact there’s no tech support for Plex even as a paid product, just these forums that unpaid users do most of the tech support and management of the space for each other. If you have a problem, hopefully someone answers your post otherwise you’re outta luck - and honestly most of the time you’ll get an answer from someone that’ll help but it’s not usually a paid Plex employee (not to put down the Plex employees that do engage and help - there are some very good folks). There was a culture of community cooperation and appreciation and that helped garner good faith between us as users\customers and Plex as a company.
Recently, more and more changes are coming without that participation or acknowledgement. In the past, opt-out\opt-in mistakes like this happened before and actually got backtracked after threads like this one. GUI\UI changes that drew criticism got attention - even if not changed, at least some acknowledgement. That seems to be gone now - look at this and other threads about this change or switching from unwatched to watched flags for movies. Unfortunately it’s a common problem with projects that start with grassroots and then turn into ‘profit machines’ for investors. That’s my perspective anyways.
So I don’t really mind the company finding ways to make money and develop further and I can see where Plex as a “concierge” fits current media consumption environment (and wouldn’t mind if they can help create more competition with the STB OS market) and those of us who don’t want to use these new features can turn them off … I think customers like me who were\are part of that earlier “core” that helped build the foundation Plex is now using to jump into new “profit” areas would like a bit more consideration in how Plex is handling things.
Most of the criticism isn’t “don’t do it” … it’s “do it better”.
“Opt-In” as a clear process is what customers - and laws in some cases - expect … the way Plex is implementing Discover features is not really following that very well and I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the customers to complain about it. How a company addresses complaints says a lot about it … and Plex messaging and actions currently don’t seem to be responding in the ways it used to … the ways that previously earned some good faith. It’s disheartening and disappointing.
There isn’t going to be a backtrack on this from Plex… it was released already and companies don’t “apologize” anymore because that will impact their relationship with their investors. Plex is run by the investors now so hopefully they’ll learn that handling these things better will keep more users active and supporting them going forward both financially and culturally. Otherwise all those posts that tell people “use Plex” will continue to change to “use Jellyfin” or other platforms.
At least, that’s my two cents after having a few disappointing things happen with Plex the last couple months.
