What I don’t understand is why every post which doesn’t bash the new interface devolves into an argument. I didn’t state any preference for it, nor do I have one. I was just trying to help someone with one of the more esoteric aspects of navigating it.
And here you come guns a’blazing representing the very, very vocal we hate the change clan.
I just don’t care. I only want to help folks.
You taught your elderly users how to use the previous Plex client interface. You can choose to do it again. Or you can choose to teach them the Emby or Jellyfin interfaces (and set up remote access for them). Again, I don’t care. I was trying to help this specific user with a fairly specific problem.
Again, why does everything have to turn into a fight? I was trying to help with a very specifically-stated problem. Every response since has been some form of “you just don’t get it” or “I said this, but I really meant this other thing.”
I shouldn’t have to defend trying to help someone.
Legitimately, this needless word addition does not come across as helpful and is a big contribution to defensiveness.
Plex is a company with a paid product that I paid for and am unhappy with the changes they continue to make to it, and have been for years. The direction of changes and friction added are absolutely to drive people to ad supported content, even with the options to disable that content existing. A lot of people are not going to disable that, and so this change will funnel users to that content at the expense of the usefulness of the product that I paid for. I understand implementing this change for free users, but I do not like being further monetized this way. They could give plex pass users the option to choose the interface we like, but they don’t and that’s very telling.
I have stopped trying to help in these emotionally charged topics.
Sometimes the person is just frustrated and wants to be heard, not helped, which is fine. A big part of the forums\community is helping people solve problems so the inclination for many is to try and help by offering options or solutions. Unfortunately, helping when someone just wants to be heard will just not be received well.
So, better safe than sorry rather than being accused of taking sides or being a “them” instead of an “us” and getting a bunch of aggressive language or accusations or personal insults thrown your way… over media playback software… it’s just not worth the aggravation for a volunteer hobby. So, I wait to help until someone specifically asks for it and isn’t just “talking out loud” about what they’re upset about.
… its an aggressive start to your response. Not needed, adds nothing to conversation but to rile folks up which is why I call it out as rage bait. You have done this many times.
That bug is different. Known for and Filmography are part of the navigation interface of discover credits and it has links to advertisements to whats on plex which cannot be disabled. Once accessed it takes you to plex content.
Anyhow, I’m done on this thread, not worth my additional efforts.
Most users of Plex that are not server admins most likely never even come here to the forums. For that matter, most of them don’t even realize these forums exist. Also pretty confident in saying that most users originally used Plex because of wanting to watch content hosted by an admin (and still do). Yeah, Plex is picking up some people who watch their ad-hosted content, and that’s the point of OP’s post - it’s pushing users to watch ads more now.
I’ve been an extremely outspoken critic of the new UI in addition to a few others (much to the annoyance of some, but I’m intentionally being that way - I’m not letting this go). I’ve seen far more complaints among the forums than support for the new UI. There may be a few legitimate users among those who do like the new UI, but it’s largely this same group of people swarming on new topics complaining about Plex’s direction.
What Plex has done here is not ok and takes away from their original core mission. I understand the self-hosted media users are not their priority or money-maker anymore, but I wish they at would least leave us alone instead of actively sabotaging our experience.
And the slap in the face was the overnight replacement of a perfectly working, mature app for one that was alpha level at best. Plex has turned into a total circus. It’s infuriating but it also just makes me sad. 15-ish years of the best personal media server washed completely down the drain overnight.
Whoa there, my dude. I’m in no way an outspoken supporter of the new interface. I do tend to call out misinformation when it appears, but that’s about it. There’s a very big difference between not hating something and full-blown supporting it.
In point of fact, I’m more or less agnostic regarding the new interface. I was fine with the old UI, and I was able to adjust to the new UI. There’s no religious fervor here, real or imagined.
Unless you can point out where I have ‘supported’ the new UI, rather than simply disagreeing with some of the more questionable claims about how awful it is, I’d appreciate if you could edit your post again to reflect my position as well.
I feel burned by and burnt out on Plex. When I started probably 10 years ago, it was awesome! A Netflix like experience for my own stuff… and I could share this awesomeness with my people.
Slowly, over time, new “features” started to creep in. I didn’t mind them so much as they always felt like an addition to what I had going on. Now it’s all parked right next to, and in some ways it feels like it’s mixed with my stuff. It’s equally prioritized, where it once felt quietly nestled in the background.
I’ve said this before, but I rely on them to be the face of my operations. I trust them to provide my service to my people. I’ve paid them to do so. Now, I feel… unheard.
This is why I’m all over rolling to Jellyfin if I can. The more I’ve used it… it isn’t pretty, but it’s just my stuff. A few clicks straight to my stuff. Only my stuff. Nothing else.
In addition to the feature creep, they have blatantly removed much beloved (and paid for) features like Watch Together. Some people bought the very expensive lifetime pass just for that feature. I know it’s not totally gone and can still be used here and there but we all know it’s just a matter of time before every platform, including web, is replaced with the “new experience” and that will not include those features. It’s such a shame that they absolutely refuse to listen to the users that literally built their platform and supported them for so many years in favor of more money and keeping up with the Jones’s (which most people hate btw, that’s why we loved Plex!).
Thank you everyone for your voices of support. It’s good to know I’m not the only one disappointed in Plex’s leadership decisions.
They don’t seem to respond much to criticism coming from the forums, so communicate to them in manner they will understand: Stop watching any ad based content, at all. Have your users leave appropriate reviews on their various apps. Actually go through the steps to download Jellyfin and give it a try.
The last thing Plex added of real interest to me that I can think of was commercial skipping. Ironic really that they are okay skipping network ads, but insist so strongly we watch Plex’s ads.
There have been, in my opinion, a lot of bad moves in the last few years. Almost all of them related to pushing ad supported content in one way or another. I complained about this 3 years ago when they started spamming app notifications. At least then I could just disable plex notifications entirely. This I can’t ignore.
