This pretty much sums it up
Hey now all we need is for Emby to offer a special (i.e. deeper discount) on their lifetime. In fact, that is what it’s going to take, seeing that I feel screwed out of my one with Plex. I’m very weary of dropping another $100+
To think, just a week ago, with the news released regarding Live TV coming to Roku (stating that it WAS coming), I was regardless of already being a lifetime member, about to inquire how to donate, just to donate. No, I’m serious, quite serious. I was going to sell my HD Primes, older HD OTA units (that arent compatible with Plex – but really they’re so old I’m fine with that) and donate a portion of the sell of those to Plex. Crazy? Perhaps, but, up until today’s announcement, I was pleased with Plex. Sure sure, features take what I feel to be too long to be added (despite their popularity/vote), and bugs cropping up here and there (displaying a detachment from attention to detail and otherwise professionalism)… all in all, I’ve been, up until this point, pleased.
I’m just so perplexed (no pun intended, perhaps yesterday I would have been in a jovial mood) as to this decision.
Plex tells us on one hand, our privacy is important to them, even going as far as to try to convince us, they take it with the utmost seriousness.
Then say, remember that optional data collection (regardless of what data, who are THEY to say what data of MINE is “private” or not?) that you opted out of? Yeah, no.
Is this a seriously late April fools joke? Because even if it were April 1st, I doubt I’d find it funny even then.
Time to go back to reading about Emby now. Plex, even if you were to rescind your decision now, I’ll still continue my research on Emby and how I can make the migration, out of sheer anger. YOU telling us, the paying subscriber what is or is not private. Who the F do you think you are? No, no, it’s NOT the “end of the world” (or is it, seems up is down and down is up anymore with everything going on around us), it’s just the end of my loyalty to your company, as well as anyone else that shares in my opinion on the matter.
I agree with many here.
I do not like being a product myself, especially if I’ve paid for a product or service.
This is one of many reasons I cancelled cable television 5+ years ago.
I could understand not having the option to opt-out for the non-Plexpass user.
I might not be happy with it if I weren’t a Plexpass member, but, I’d understand it.
I understand Plex is a business. But my usage business shouldn’t be theirs.
Remain a software product. Not a data ~~whore ~~ warehouse.
Allow Plexpass to continue to opt-out, at our choice.
I’ve edited my signature from ‘Proud Plexpass subscriber’ to ‘Unfortunate lifetime PlexPass data generating product!’ I’ve also replied to a message from @elan from 2016 in which he added “Plexhibitionist” to my title area after the Vanilla forums switch no longer allowed this for end-users. I’ve asked that he remove it, as, I just can’t stand behind exhibiting my loyalty to Plex as a company in this way any more.
I’ve added a few null routes to my dnsmasq configuration.
I too am interested in what else is out there. Kodi doesn’t have the server/client support like Plex does.
When I last looked at Emby ~2 years ago, it just wasn’t there yet.
For those of you who have started researching already, I’d be interested in seeing what you’ve found to replace Plex. The more open, the better.
Just block metrics.plex.tv on DNS level, and don’t upgrade your Media Server. The latter shouldn’t be too hard considering all new features of late (DVR, Cloud) have been useless.
Sorry, I’ve been over on Reddit trying to respond to a bunch of things, so I hadn’t seen this thread until now.
I just wanted to clarify a few things which I’ve seen misrepresented or completely misunderstood, either here or on other channels:
- We have never been interested in what media you have in your library, or what library media you’re watching. This hasn’t changed, and will not change!
- We’re not selling or sharing these statistics with anyone, so I don’t know why people are saying they’re the product, or we’re whoring their data. That’s simply not the case.
- We’ve always had in our privacy policy the part about exceptions for third parties; for example, if you played a VEVO video, we had to let them know about that (in an anonymous way). Ditto for things like premium trailers (which again, are streaming from a commercial provider of that media).
- We’re not going to put ads on your personal content. Any mention of advertising in the ToC is specially meant to cover third party commercial content. If you don’t want to watch that content, you certainly don’t have to.
Can you help me understand the specific aspects of the new policy you’re angry at, because I feel like a lot of the anger I’m reading is based on misunderstanding. (Not all of it, for sure, but definitely some of it.)
@hexluther said:
Hey now all we need is for Emby to offer a special (i.e. deeper discount) on their lifetime. In fact, that is what it’s going to take, seeing that I feel screwed out of my one with Plex. I’m very weary of dropping another $100+To think, just a week ago, with the news released regarding Live TV coming to Roku (stating that it WAS coming), I was regardless of already being a lifetime member, about to inquire how to donate, just to donate. No, I’m serious, quite serious. I was going to sell my HD Primes, older HD OTA units (that arent compatible with Plex – but really they’re so old I’m fine with that) and donate a portion of the sell of those to Plex. Crazy? Perhaps, but, up until today’s announcement, I was pleased with Plex. Sure sure, features take what I feel to be too long to be added (despite their popularity/vote), and bugs cropping up here and there (displaying a detachment from attention to detail and otherwise professionalism)… all in all, I’ve been, up until this point, pleased.
I’m just so perplexed (no pun intended, perhaps yesterday I would have been in a jovial mood) as to this decision.
Plex tells us on one hand, our privacy is important to them, even going as far as to try to convince us, they take it with the utmost seriousness.
Then say, remember that optional data collection (regardless of what data, who are THEY to say what data of MINE is “private” or not?) that you opted out of? Yeah, no.
Is this a seriously late April fools joke? Because even if it were April 1st, I doubt I’d find it funny even then.
Time to go back to reading about Emby now. Plex, even if you were to rescind your decision now, I’ll still continue my research on Emby and how I can make the migration, out of sheer anger. YOU telling us, the paying subscriber what is or is not private. Who the F do you think you are? No, no, it’s NOT the “end of the world” (or is it, seems up is down and down is up anymore with everything going on around us), it’s just the end of my loyalty to your company, as well as anyone else that shares in my opinion on the matter.
Did you see, probably in one of the other whino threads, that Emby does the exact same stuff or at least reserves the right to do so? So, have fun porting all your stuff to Emby, where business is handled in the exact same way of at least very similar.
with this ATT & Time Warner merger deal and the Trump thing this week and last week must have gotten everyone on edge with conspiracy theories lol we don’t know who to trust anymore
Oh, I’ll bite, but, you’re either a 1. bumbling idiot, 2. purposely acting stupid or 3. so far out of touch or I suppose 4. arrogant ad nauseam
“We have never been interested in what media you have in your library, or what library media you’re watching. This hasn’t changed, and will not change!”
Says the company who doesn’t respect ALL privacy matters, removes the ability to OPT-OUT and believes they get to decide WHAT constitutes PRIVATE information. MY server, MY hardware, MY subscription to ISP, generating data from what is on MY server, what -I- watch, really, do I need to go on?
“We’re not selling or sharing these statistics with anyone, so I don’t know why people are saying they’re the product, or we’re whoring their data. That’s simply not the case.”
I’ll humor you with a response, though, it’s irrelevant and the fact you just aren’t “getting it” leaves me to believe, no matter what I say in regards to this line will be moot. But again, I’ll humor you sir. We do not CARE if you are “whoring” data, or not… it is -not- YOUR data to begin with. Do you get that? Whether such data be a result of an algorithm or raw data, it is still produce as a result of OUR data, OUR hardware running the software producing OUR data, etc.
“We’ve always had in our privacy policy the part about exceptions for third parties; for example, if you played a VEVO video, we had to let them know about that (in an anonymous way). Ditto for things like premium trailers (which again, are streaming from a commercial provider of that media).”
Third party, we get it, you have no control of what they do and how they do it… but guess what. I don’t use those services. I do not have trailers, etc. because, I CHOOSE not to. Thus again, irrelevant and showing again how out of touch you are, or simply do not give two s**ts about.
“We’re not going to put ads on your personal content. Any mention of advertising in the ToC is specially meant to cover third party commercial content. If you don’t want to watch that content, you certainly don’t have to.”
Why not? You’re going to need to run ads to generate the lost revenue stream. Though I suspect you have plenty of capital by now not to care… or DO you?
“Can you help me understand the specific aspects of the new policy you’re angry at, because I feel like a lot of the anger I’m reading is based on misunderstanding. (Not all of it, for sure, but definitely some of it.)”
I doubt it helped… because honestly, the sheer fact that Plex made this move (even if just an announcement at this point) shows, you’re idiots.
Furthermore sir, consider this my notification that I DO NOT CONSENT to the changes of the Privacy Policy. Now should you hinder usage of the product I paid for its “lifetime” of (which I assume you aren’t going to do a name change or will you now? but I could still see you in court stipulating that enough of the code that makes the product is the same as the previously named product), can no longer be used due to lack of updates. Well, do you see where we’re going with this? Either way.
You asked, I replied and I suspect many others will as well. Have fun swimming in the s**t pool you built with Friday’s “update” to the privacy policy. Really, it’s a COMPLETE CHANGE to it, but… I’ve posted that elsewhere around here already.
@Coxeroni said:
@hexluther said:
Hey now all we need is for Emby to offer a special (i.e. deeper discount) on their lifetime. In fact, that is what it’s going to take, seeing that I feel screwed out of my one with Plex. I’m very weary of dropping another $100+To think, just a week ago, with the news released regarding Live TV coming to Roku (stating that it WAS coming), I was regardless of already being a lifetime member, about to inquire how to donate, just to donate. No, I’m serious, quite serious. I was going to sell my HD Primes, older HD OTA units (that arent compatible with Plex – but really they’re so old I’m fine with that) and donate a portion of the sell of those to Plex. Crazy? Perhaps, but, up until today’s announcement, I was pleased with Plex. Sure sure, features take what I feel to be too long to be added (despite their popularity/vote), and bugs cropping up here and there (displaying a detachment from attention to detail and otherwise professionalism)… all in all, I’ve been, up until this point, pleased.
I’m just so perplexed (no pun intended, perhaps yesterday I would have been in a jovial mood) as to this decision.
Plex tells us on one hand, our privacy is important to them, even going as far as to try to convince us, they take it with the utmost seriousness.
Then say, remember that optional data collection (regardless of what data, who are THEY to say what data of MINE is “private” or not?) that you opted out of? Yeah, no.
Is this a seriously late April fools joke? Because even if it were April 1st, I doubt I’d find it funny even then.
Time to go back to reading about Emby now. Plex, even if you were to rescind your decision now, I’ll still continue my research on Emby and how I can make the migration, out of sheer anger. YOU telling us, the paying subscriber what is or is not private. Who the F do you think you are? No, no, it’s NOT the “end of the world” (or is it, seems up is down and down is up anymore with everything going on around us), it’s just the end of my loyalty to your company, as well as anyone else that shares in my opinion on the matter.
Did you see, probably in one of the other whino threads, that Emby does the exact same stuff or at least reserves the right to do so? So, have fun porting all your stuff to Emby, where business is handled in the exact same way of at least very similar.
“Whino” that’s nice. Roll over and spread those cheeks buddy. No, I didn’t mean “buddy” in THAT manner, control your 1 inch woody.
Did YOU see where I said, “Time to go back to reading about Emby now.” ? No? Perhaps YOU should lose the holier than thou persona and sarcasm. Now, put your underoos back on, your ass is showing.
@elan said:
Can you help me understand the specific aspects of the new policy you’re angry at, because I feel like a lot of the anger I’m reading is based on misunderstanding. (Not all of it, for sure, but definitely some of it.)
I don’t care about the data collection details. What I care about is that I can’t opt out anymore. I paid you $150 and I expect from you that I have the option to tell you: don’t collect anything from me at all (expect maybe crash logs).
This comment summarizes it pretty good:
@ShadowBlade72 said:
For those saying “only a handful of people care”, then why remove the opt-out feature? It’s turned on by default, so why can’t those of us who are privacy conscious have an option to opt out? If we are truly the vocal minority, then there should be no reason to remove it, as they should already be getting the statistics they need from the masses who don’t opt-out.The fact that they’re forcing this on everyone is, to me, telling of their future plans. They want to force everyone into their collection, so that when they “tweak” the privacy policy again next year, they can collect even more information without as much backlash.
We have seen it time and time again. Once something is introduced, it gets expanded. It’s inevitable.
@hexluther said:
Oh, I’ll bite, but, you’re either a 1. bumbling idiot, 2. purposely acting stupid or 3. so far out of touch or I suppose 4. arrogant ad nauseam
Well, I can tell we’re going to get along great given how abusive you’re being right out of the gate 
“We have never been interested in what media you have in your library, or what library media you’re watching. This hasn’t changed, and will not change!”
Says the company who doesn’t respect ALL privacy matters, removes the ability to OPT-OUT and believes they get to decide WHAT constitutes PRIVATE information. MY server, MY hardware, MY subscription to ISP, generating data from what is on MY server, what -I- watch, really, do I need to go on?
That seems like a non-sequitur, so I’m not sure how to respond. I stand by my original statement, which is true. We don’t know what’s in your library, nor what you’re playing. But for example, if you’re using our app on your iPhone remotely, it’s going to connect to OUR cloud service to figure out where YOUR server is, just as an example, and as a result, we need to store information about YOUR SERVER and YOUR IP ADDRESS.
“We’re not going to put ads on your personal content. Any mention of advertising in the ToC is specially meant to cover third party commercial content. If you don’t want to watch that content, you certainly don’t have to.”
Why not? You’re going to need to run ads to generate the lost revenue stream. Though I suspect you have plenty of capital by now not to care… or DO you?
Again, not sure how this is relevant or how to respond, as you evidently have your own narrative.
I doubt it helped… because honestly, the sheer fact that Plex made this move (even if just an announcement at this point) shows, you’re idiots.
I don’t think we can have a productive conversation about this, but I’m happy to refund you your lifetime membership if you’d like. I’m truly sorry that these changes have upset you as much as they have.
@Wiidesire said:
The fact that they’re forcing this on everyone is, to me, telling of their future plans. They want to force everyone into their collection, so that when they “tweak” the privacy policy again next year, they can collect even more information without as much backlash.
We have seen it time and time again. Once something is introduced, it gets expanded. It’s inevitable.
No, no, and no. Please stop with this FUD, it’s not helpful. You can invent future dystopian scenarios all day…
@elan said:
@Wiidesire said:
The fact that they’re forcing this on everyone is, to me, telling of their future plans. They want to force everyone into their collection, so that when they “tweak” the privacy policy again next year, they can collect even more information without as much backlash.
We have seen it time and time again. Once something is introduced, it gets expanded. It’s inevitable.
No, no, and no. Please stop with this FUD, it’s not helpful. You can invent future dystopian scenarios all day…
You conveniently left out the part about not having the option to opt out anymore. Why did you remove it?
@Wiidesire said:
You conveniently left out the part about not having the option to opt out anymore. Why did you remove it?
@elan
This is the biggest question. if none of the assumptions are true about why you’re doing this. then WHY?
if nothing is changing on your end, than you don’t need to make this change. Making this change feels very much like the start of a slippery slope where today, sure, it’s removing the opt-out… but tomorrow it’s monetization… or? what else?
There is literally no reason for this change. And it’s a question you have not managed to answer anywhere. you’ve denied every accusation, but you will not answer WHY
@mpasternak said:
There is literally no reason for this change. And it’s a question you have not managed to answer anywhere. you’ve denied every accusation, but you will not answer WHY
He won’t comment about the opt-out removal because there is no way to justify it. Honestly his responses make me more angry than the announcement.
Hurr durr we care about your privacy! Don’t make assumptions! But we don’t tell you why we now force you to “consent” to the data collection. Just take it. Don’t question it. You don’t need to opt out anymore.
You conveniently left out the part about not having the option to opt out anymore. Why did you remove it?
Didn’t we explain this? From the page:
In order to understand the usage across the Plex ecosystem and how we need to improve…
This sort of basic data (again: not the specific media you’re putting in your library or playing) is super helpful for us to understand how our (rapidly growing) user base is using our suite of products. It helps us decide what to invest in, and what not to, and it also helps us communicate with you; for example, if we discovered a security issue with a particular version of our server, we could notify just those users about the issue and recommend an upgrade.
@Wiidesire said:
He won’t comment about the opt-out removal because there is no way to justify it. Honestly his responses make me more angry than the announcement.
Sheesh, give a guy a few minutes before you jump on him? It’s honestly off-putting when you’re trying to have a reasonable conversation.
What im most pissed about is the part about the addition of ads for third party stuff… I freaking havent paid plex pass every month for years to have ads shoved down my throat, along with all the other dodgy BS thats in the updated privacy agreement youre forcing alot of your loyal users to go look for different software.
What is the REAL reason youre changing this now? Is it the DVR feature that “requires” these changes?
How about you make that a module on its own you can active/deactivate and let the privacy bullshit follow that.
Here in EU (My part of it anyway) I cant use the DVR feature at all, no content providers at all, and I really really couldnt care less…
You REALLY need to spell out for everyone what exactly it is that makes you turn 180 and force this before you lose most of your income due to leaving users.
@elan said:
Didn’t we explain this? From the page:In order to understand the usage across the Plex ecosystem and how we need to improve…
Not good enough. Are you saying that the majority of users opted out so you can’t improve your “ecosystem” anymore?
@elan said:
Sheesh, give a guy a few minutes before you jump on him? It’s honestly off-putting when you’re trying to have a reasonable conversation.
You removed opt out of data collection. A violation of my privacy even though I paid you $150. I don’t see what there needs to be a discussion about.
I would understand the change for free users but for Plex Pass users? Simply unacceptable.
@elan said:
@hexluther said:
Oh, I’ll bite, but, you’re either a 1. bumbling idiot, 2. purposely acting stupid or 3. so far out of touch or I suppose 4. arrogant ad nauseamWell, I can tell we’re going to get along great given how abusive you’re being right out of the gate
Sorry to remove you from your safe place. Sticks and stones, remember that.
“We have never been interested in what media you have in your library, or what library media you’re watching. This hasn’t changed, and will not change!”
Says the company who doesn’t respect ALL privacy matters, removes the ability to OPT-OUT and believes they get to decide WHAT constitutes PRIVATE information. MY server, MY hardware, MY subscription to ISP, generating data from what is on MY server, what -I- watch, really, do I need to go on?
That seems like a non-sequitur, so I’m not sure how to respond. I stand by my original statement, which is true. We don’t know what’s in your library, nor what you’re playing. But for example, if you’re using our app on your iPhone remotely, it’s going to connect to OUR cloud service to figure out where YOUR server is, just as an example, and as a result, we need to store information about YOUR SERVER and YOUR IP ADDRESS.
Non sequitur, not hyphenated, albeit, I digress. Not enter the “so far out of touch” comment I made above.
“In order to understand the usage across the Plex ecosystem and how we need to improve, Plex will continue to collect usage statistics, such as device type, duration, bit rate, media format, resolution, and media type (music, photos, videos, etc.).”
You will continue to collect usage statistics… NOOO… you should have never been collecting that, as I had opted out. However, duration, bit rate, media format, resolution, media type, etc. is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. It is on MY server.
The fact that you implement a centralized, lets call it, “login server”, was something I was already against. I’d much rather just share my IP (which I’m fortunate enough to have static IP’s, though if I didn’t DynDNS is a solution, so is NO-IP.com, etc.), but, I figured, fine, I’ll deal with that. Server name, it’s owner “name” and credentials and the IP it is at. No worries.
Now that that is out of the way. Let’s get back to what appears to be something you’re avoiding. On purpose?
ANY data (beyond what is needed by the “login server”) sent of MINE, to your servers is NOT welcome. Is that plain enough for you?
“We’re not going to put ads on your personal content. Any mention of advertising in the ToC is specially meant to cover third party commercial content. If you don’t want to watch that content, you certainly don’t have to.”
Why not? You’re going to need to run ads to generate the lost revenue stream. Though I suspect you have plenty of capital by now not to care… or DO you?
Again, not sure how this is relevant or how to respond, as you evidently have your own narrative.
As do you and your company. What’s to not understand? You’ve pissed on our legs and told us its raining. Can you already see the fallout? You said yourself, you were seemingly overwhelmed on reddit. So now if even half those folks cancel their subscription, that would result in lost revenue streams. Perhaps I should be talking to your CFO about this topic. So for the purpose of this debate, sure, let’s forget this portion.
I doubt it helped… because honestly, the sheer fact that Plex made this move (even if just an announcement at this point) shows, you’re idiots.
I don’t think we can have a productive conversation about this, but I’m happy to refund you your lifetime membership if you’d like. I’m truly sorry that these changes have upset you as much as they have.
No you aren’t. Otherwise, you and your company wouldn’t have made the pompous decision to send OUR data to your servers.
If you were sorry, I suspect you’d attempt to resolve the resounding anger induced by Plex’s ignorant decision by rescinding it.
So, when you’re ready to not patronize me, I’d gladly continue. Why do you feel it cannot be productive? That’s quite a closing statement. You fail at sales sir. Where’s the COO at?
