I appreciate the replies, but these are all emotional arguments, based on a feeling of possession or ownership of these users. Mingled with the threat of “I’ll take my ball and go to another playground.” Those types of arguments cannot be countered with reason, so I’ll not attempt it.
How is that emotional or some false ownership of the users? It’s a fact for a lot of us the users are there because of our server, and only because of our server. If we as admins find that Plex is no longer worth running and change to something else our users will go with us. We are the only reason they’re running Plex. As for taking my ball and going someplace else, that’s why a lot of us are in this discussion. There is a very real chance Plex could drive us away from software we’ve run for quite a few years. They need to know what they risk losing if they continue on this path. That kind of decision both drives away users and gets them to give very bad reviews when asked about the product. Neither is good unless they’re just changing to some sort of aggregator that points to cloud based stuff and don’t want the Plex servers around anymore. If that’s the case they should just tell us all to go to hell and we’ll move on.
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You did not understand the arguments at all. Maybe a problem of different ages. The arguments that andyholzrichter brought up are completely reasonable and justified.
I am in a similar situation. A few months ago I changed from Synology Video Station to Plex because of my media server dying of old age and growing pains with the DS Video Software. Plex seemed to be the best candidate of all considered options because of the promised features, mainly all what my old server did plus some new stuff.
But I have to deal with more and more problems, all due to “improvements” of the server.
They improved the metadata agent, so instead of the promised TVDB data, I get more and more rubbish from other sources without the ability to completely fix the problem.
They promised a download feature, if I buy this Plex Pass. After buying that, they improved the working download feature by replacing it with a not working one.
Now they annoy my users (they are MINE because I created these users on MY system) with a pile of ads and even more rubbish.
Plex promised to provide a local media server for my media and my family. We don’t need any ads for some streaming sites or any kind of external media. As the admin of my media server I am responsible what my family does with any software I installed there. And if the authorities find out that Plex shows porn ads to kids by using my server, they will hold ME responsible, not some ignorants abroad.
If Plex wants to be an advertisement portal, I can not stop them. But I can and will stop my family from being annoyed or even threatened by inappropriate nonsense.
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I understand completely.
The only thing I’m questioning in my comments above is the idea of personal ownership of the user’s to whom they introduced the platform.
In general I think there may be some confusion between the concepts of ownership and responsibility. They are not the same. Folks feel responsible for and accountable to the users they introduced to Plex. While it’s reasonable to think that equates to ownership, it does not.
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You may be interpreting the word “my” a little strict here. No one is arguing that the users do not count in the daily active users statistic they floated to the VCs. What people are arguing here is that ‘some’ ppl are only plex users because someone shared them their personal media and will not be plex users anymore when server owners decide to switch. This is not a threat, this is not a sense of ownership over a person, this is just a statement of fact which you chose to interpret in an extreme fashion, for dramatic effect, I suppose, while ignoring other statements and questions because ‘feelings’ or something.
This shows that you do not understand the argument, hence the question I posed to you, which you ignored.
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Ignore ownership and responsibility. If the users came to Plex and stay w/ Plex because of me and my server, and would leave/uninstall Plex if I change what do you call them? I’d just call them my users.
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Of course it’s a threat. The implication of said threat being “If you don’t handle this the way I’d like, I’ll tell these users Plex is no longer a thing.” I’m not suggesting it’s unreasonable, given your position, but let’s at least recognize it for what it is. Keep in mind that ‘threat’ is just a statement of intent; it has a negative connotation primarily because the consequences are negative.
I don’t think I ignored it. What those users would do would be completely dependent upon what you told them to do. Regardless of whether or not you continued to share a server with them, Plex (the client) would still function for them and be useable. You could make an argument that it would be useless because you took away your content, but that wouldn’t be entirely true.
idk man 
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That’s fair. In my mind I considered that one asked and answered. But it’s somewhat argumentative anyway. What would happen would depend entirely upon you. I’ll assume that you would tell them to uninstall Plex. So, Plex would lose users.
This is where you are missing the point.
The answer is they would not have a reason to open the plex app anymore.
And I guess that is also the reason plex does what plex is doing right now.
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You still don’t understand a thing.
You handle this as if we talk about sharing some fancy media with some other fancy Plex users over the internet and fancy social media.
But we talk about family members being local users on our local media servers.
That seemed to be what Plex was all about for some years and that was why I installed it in the first place.
I don’t need to be a personal streaming service for unknown people just to get some clicks and feel like the greatest influencer of them all… I want to provide a stable and reliable environment for my family. And they expect me to provide exactly that. Nothing else.
My server is not accessible over the internet and never will be. And if one day I find some backdoor that will be the moment when Plex will be removed instantly.
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I don’t understand this statement. There is value in the Plex client other than the content which you share. It may not be content which you value, but it is there nonetheless. Some of that value being the topic of this thread: The Discover and Watchlist features.
That’s fair. I tell myself the same thing occasionally.
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Not for MY users. They want to watch MY content, not some stuff some company wants them to watch. Maybe you are too young to understand that for many people the primary purpose of the internet ist NOT to be annoyed by tons of ads. By the way, do you happen to be a Plex employee? Or simply a true believer?
Now wait, superflous ads, that could be an idea. We have blockers for chrome, blockers for youtube, maybe there can be a blocker for Plex. Must look into that. ofc it would mean no more Win10 app, no more android app, but the download doesn’t work anymore. Or even a simple blacklist for the sources of the rubbish would work. Hmmm (thinking…)
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If you’re managing to get tons of ads during your (or any of your users) described use case of plex then you’re doing something wrong…
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Is it the fault of the users now then?
If you’re getting loads of ads while watching purely local content then either you’ve either purposefully going to the new features to get to your content (which is entirely unnecessary) or you’re not watching local content.
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Unless you have added something to the watchlist, or perhaps you have not been able to remove results from other servers from the search engine, or perhaps you have traveled to the discover page. It is not exactly difficult, especially for some users.
So you do that once, decide you don’t like it, and don’t do it again. How is that difficult? Surely that’s far more sensible than continuing to go back to the place with the ‘constant’ ads?
You have too much faith in some users, move a site once and they will be as lost as if you had put everything in another language. Some users simply see a new option and enter, and as it is with the rest of the things that they can see, and have been seeing for years, they automatically assume the same. Even if it doesn’t work, it will be the admin’s problem, or plex’s, not theirs. They will stay that way until the option is removed.
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