This is something I think it would help to keep in mind when trying to discuss with Plex - the business - about something. I feel that sometimes there are high expectations from Plex users around what being a ‘customer’ means to Plex, Inc these days and sometimes that leads to missed solution possibilities.
The new business customers must be a significant part of that number.
Those of us in the forums are mostly local media management folks and represent a tiny fraction of Plex’s current customer base - based on some of the things Plex reps have said over time (including in the recent fireside’s). Even with some observation bias you can get a feel for which topics get more engagement. At least from my own perspective.
There aren’t dedicated categories for the rentals or live TV and if you look at the tags they are pretty sparse (“rentals” tag only has 3 topics). Partly that’s because they’re mostly covered by the server side. That fits with the new business that relies on the server software so resources are provided for server support and are still very good. Our local media playback client issues don’t get that same attention (I’m being selfish linking one of my own). 
That’s because local media client issues are very unique situations requiring personal attention for an ever increasing “niche” use (see some comments in that linked post for more on that, this is already gonna be long - sorry). That means a lot of resources are spent on managing one-off issues; that’s a lot of overhead for a business.
Streaming services like the rentals and live TV and social\discover features are a dedicated platform managed directly by Plex, so that’s a much more standardized environment which requires a lot less user support. It also means regular income for the business in the form of rentals, ads, and data collection from viewing and social telemetry. That’s less overhead associated to recurring income which equals more profit and returns.
That’s the opposite of us folks only using Plex for local media who aren’t providing any new income. Essentially, anytime one of us says “I’m a lifetime plexpass owner and don’t care about streaming” we’re telling Plex they got all the money they’re going to get from us already. We’re a former customer… not a current customer; just a user.
Not to say Plex won’t continue to do work on their “legacy” product. There are still employees and reps who are very dedicated to helping users and many employees are users themselves and want to see improvements too. Plus, there are incentives for Plex to keep from ditching the local media management functionality and community that was built the last several years. For the foreseeable future anyways.
I don’t say all this to vilify Plex. A lot of this is just how business revenue expectations work these days and Plex seems to be following some of those expectations. It’s just disappointing and frustrating for many of us specifically in these forums and I think that disconnection sometimes makes it difficult for us to communicate effectively. I don’t always do it well myself, that’s for sure.
Suffice to say I still think Plex continues to be the easiest local media management platform to adopt and manage while still providing excellent features and functionality compared to the other common options… even if it’s not as reliable or community driven as it used to be.
Don’t pay me too much mind though… I’m just frustrated with some of the changes over the years and wanted to say something for myself I guess. Like many have said here… I hope to see things go well in the future.
