Yes and no about enshittification being here now. There’s some concerns (and I’ve certainly pointed out red flags related to enshittification in other topics) but we can still turn off all their new business stuff so it’s not quite forced onto us. I only see my local content and I see it in the way I set it up - lots of Home row customizations and minimal libraries which makes me much less impacted by the new navigation changes (though v9 I think is a huge improvement over v8).
Plex has certainly taken advantage of the good will they built up - and squandered it with bad releases and ignoring users and at times being downright condescending (some of those Fireside’s were just… baldly false promises - “every topic is reviewed by a rep” means unresponsiveness was reps specifically choosing to ignore users and issues).
There are hints that Plex might be going that enshittification direction in order to achieve the ever increasing profits - it’s just so damn common these days - but as long as I’m still allowed to turn ALL of it off, then I’m less concerned about it.
Some Plex Movies and TV Shows online service “ads” showed up recently - and they fixed it as a bug pretty quickly. That was a good sign. You’ll see mention of “enshittification” hints in that topic. ![]()
Not saying they’re handling it well… but recently they’ve seemed to be taking some steps to course correct a bit about taking local media legacy user’s good will and support for granted the last couple years. They put music back in the client after complaints. Some of the recent v9 updates on Roku have addressed some direct complaints about the 3 library limit and library navigation itself being janky (still waiting for my clock to fully come back but I did get updated app padding which I asked for in the beta and my request for Discovery to work with Editions is active). Still have oddities like the “Show\Season” card but might have to just give up on that one, and a known bug with TV show backgrounds has been there for over 4 months now.
They also released client changes and functionality without admins tools to manage it despite promising NOT to do exactly that… the whole New Experience release was a cluster.
So it’s definitely a mixed bag.
I also think because Plex is so central to many of our daily use and entertainment setups, these changes have a big impact on us and definitely feel personal. Particularly with how engaged Plex used to be with the community members and how much direct access we used to have - most companies aren’t as accessible. So that also makes it feel personal.
Suffice to say, personally, I think Plex is doing better today than they were last year - in general, when it comes to customer\user support - but they do have a ways to go to make up for the user\customer trust they’ve squandered. ![]()
Functionally, Plex still has features I can’t find in Emby and Jellyfin that I rely on and again, as long as they keep letting me turn off their online services I’m fine with how things are progressing… particularly with a bunch of recent fixes but it’s not really blowing my skirt up (so to speak) and I’m not really trusting them, but a few reps have said the right things lately and as long as what they say and what they do line up going forward… It’ll be “fine” in my book.
I did adjust my expectation over the years though. I still get annoyed with things (dang do I hate that stupid Show\Season card - just read my comments there :P). Plex is a product with a business behind it that makes it a “big ship” with financial captains now. It’s no longer a community project with some financial support. If you prefer that latter environment, Emby and Jellyfin are both very active community spaces and excellent products.