Totally off topic really but it is very prevalent in lots of industries as businesses have to “line go up” on profits endlessly. Cory is putting out a whole book on it and it’s even “officially” in the dictionary now. 
At the same time, I think some folks use it like “gaslighting” … not quite how it’s really intended. So sometimes it can be an odd word\topic to use.
But yeah, once you get the gist of Cory’s 'theory’ - it’s hard not to see it in so many places.
I feel this. I have several $k invested in equipment that for the most part I have to trust Plex to be the face of. It’s the only part of my ecosystem that I don’t control.
I am a bit boggled why they’re not addressing the totally useless card addition, and on the other hand they make the zoom change based on one person’s comment.
That exact type of example kinda leads me to surmise that the card is… something else. In that topic I 100% show they’ve already coded a different way to do that exact functionality yet… there it stays without any results.
At the same time other stuff gets adjusted with just the barest logic behind it; probably stuff a UI\UX person wanted to do anyways and uses a user comment to support it… I’ll admit I’ve done that to get things I personally wanted in a service I managed moved a particular direction.
To me, as someone who has had to build odd “features” into things entirely from a leadership directive… it feels like that (I say that less politely in that topic).
My bet - particularly given the example the rep gave in that topic - is that this fixes a Plex Movies and TV service thing since they don’t have show\season hierarchy there and/or fixes it across client types for their Universal experience thing (maybe AppleTV can’t do sidecar or overflow menus like Roku). At least at some management level anyways.
I say yes and yes about enshittification being here now. Have you looked at the end user experience, especially for users who don’t run a server?
These are dark patterns.
I was willing to put up with it as long as my UI/UX experience remained positive, but with the new changes that ship has sailed.
Exactly. It’s an industry-wide problem. Even Windows 11 is heavily impacted.
Yes… I mean I’ve been pretty active in the Beta areas for this release and pretty vocal in my complaints - many of which have lately been addressed actually. My complaints aren’t always the same as others though so I get that there’s different priorities for some folks. Absolutely.
Edit: Just to clarify, my use is very Home Screen centric (lots of row customization) - me and my users rarely navigate into libraries directly.
My users went into their account settings and turned off all the online services without too much trouble. None of them care about this change. I gave them a heads up and bunch of info to manage it and they were just like “I can still find and play stuff so it’s fine, didn’t really notice”. 
Good. I don’t want you to tell me how I use my Plex account just because I’m connected to your server. I’m connected to multiple servers including my own and so are my users - how would that work in your mind when one admin turns off PlexTV and Online Services and the other doesn’t? What about if one admin disables watch indicators and the other doesn’t? That’s account level, not server level too…
If you have managed users you absolutely control it for them, so if that’s what you want you should setup managed users instead. Then you can control those aspects directly.
For your other points, most of that is kinda basic business models that are annoying - ads and data mining and opt-out rather than opt-in - but you can absolutely turn them off. If you couldn’t turn them off that’d be very different. It’s not even buried or hard to do.
There are aspects that are definitely pushing their profit products which wasn’t an aspect of the brand before that became a thing, and some ways of handling changes and features that I think takes users\customers for granted (I’ve certainly said as much myself), but I wouldn’t call it nefarious “enshittification” necessarily. There are definitely signs that if they keep up with some of that user\customer mishandling they could end up on the fully enshittification route but for now it’s less “on the route” and more, at least for me, a potential to watch out for (which is why I’ve been playing with Emby and Jellyfin lately). It’s kinda always a potential for any business chasing profits these days. Yay Capitalism! 
The one I think kinda fits enshittification is them changing course on remote access and locking it behind a paywall. That was a lock-in function they took away; for many it wasn’t a big deal because most local admins have plex pass and that includes ANY user remote access so was mostly a wash but definitely designed to push people towards a plex pass. I think Emby handles remote access better where you can either use managed users and free remote access or if you want “simpler” authentication you can pay for a hosted option.
Otherwise, I do think folks use enshittification a bit off as a term… it’s not just business practices we don’t like it’s a direct user lock-in abuse. I think the term has gotten kinda skewed like “gaslighting” is used often to just mean lying instead of the more manipulative aspect it really means. So with that in mind… no I’m not thrilled with some of Plex’s choices and it’s soured me on their brand a bit and they definitely have harmed the customer good will and reputation they used to hold. Hopefully some of the recent changes are a reversal… and if not… it’s a product and business for watching tv shows and movies… there are other solutions.
Edit2: Here’s an example recently where “this looks like enshittification” came up: Plex Movies & Shows listings displayed despite having it disabled … pushing Plex Movies and TV on that screen even though it was turned off was a concern about that direction … but it was a bug and was fixed. The fact users in that thread weren’t sure it was a bug and not a new “feature” is an example of Plex’s declined reputation. As long as those types of situations are treated as bugs then I’ll hold off on the “enshittification” label. But if it was a “new feature” - I’d have called that a red flag.
Why, just why? Do you want to ruin this app? This is not the case of user resistance to a new interface, this is a case of turning a working app to something worse than a alpha software release.
Share your opinion of the new UI
My users went into their account settings and turned off all the online services without too much trouble. None of them care about this change. I gave them a heads up and bunch of info to manage it and they were just like “I can still find and play stuff so it’s fine, didn’t really notice”.
I care about this change, because I have users asking me to stop advertising to them, stop blowing up their phones with notifications, and asking me about content I cannot provide or obtain. I’m glad your users have been intelligent or apathetic enough about it, but mine have not been.
Good. I don’t want you to tell me how I use my Plex account just because I’m connected to your server. I’m connected to multiple servers including my own and so are my users - how would that work in your mind when one admin turns off PlexTV and Online Services and the other doesn’t? What about if one admin disables watch indicators and the other doesn’t? That’s account level, not server level too…
Mind saving some of this perspective for Plex themselves? Why does Plex get to steamroll their users like this? Aside from that, why do you want advertising in your mobile OS notification drawer spamming you everyday? I can’t think of many people who do, and that’s exactly the behavior I want Plex to stop. If you enjoy advertising taking up your attention, time, and resources, fine, but don’t expect everyone else to. I cannot fathom why you would defend that.
For your other points, most of that is kinda basic business models that are annoying - ads and data mining and opt-out rather than opt-in - but you can absolutely turn them off. If you couldn’t turn them off that’d be very different. It’s not even buried or hard to do.
Except for new users, they can no longer opt out of the data mining that Plex does. This nullifies your argument here.
The one I think kinda fits enshittification is them changing course on remote access and locking it behind a paywall. That was a lock-in function they took away; for many it wasn’t a big deal because most local admins have plex pass and that includes ANY user remote access so was mostly a wash but definitely designed to push people towards a plex pass. I think Emby handles remote access better where you can either use managed users and free remote access or if you want “simpler” authentication you can pay for a hosted option.
Let’s not forget they took using hosted servers away as well. I’m lucky I don’t have the Internet connection I had 7+ years ago, but I’d be screwed if I did.
I think the term has gotten kinda skewed like “gaslighting” is used often to just mean lying instead of the more manipulative aspect it really means. So with that in mind… no I’m not thrilled with some of Plex’s choices and it’s soured me on their brand a bit and they definitely have harmed the customer good will and reputation they used to hold.
I mean…you’re describing enshittification. That’s what it is. And it does not stop, slow down, or reverse if we accept it as-is at any level.
Well time is running out for Plex. I’ve been using Jellyfin. Screw Plex! If Plex doesn’t change back then when January 1st hits at midnight, i will uninstall Plex from my computer and delete them from my Roku 4! SMDH!
If I didn’t have a lifetime plex account I’d have fully moved on from plex. I also have Emby and find their app significantly better. The plex app is entirely unusable.
Plex WTF were you guys THINKING? Efficiency ppl and this new interface sucks. Been a plex pass lifetime forever and this makes it an experience in ANGER every time. Options to go CLASSIC layout ppl!
Plex WTF were you guys THINKING? Efficiency ppl and this new interface sucks. Been a plex pass lifetime forever and this makes it an experience in ANGER every time. Options to go CLASSIC layout ppl!
More and more people come out to express this.. I fully agree. This UI design is HORRIBLE. WHY can’t we just have the “legacy” version also?? Why is this hard? Where is the leadership @ plex??
Sadly we only have a bit over 200 samples (in time..) but the division had not changed ONCE since people started voting. Plex leadership needs to take notice and take action!
Roll it back! Roll it back! Roll it back!
Seriously, this update is AWFUL. My 9 year old could design a better UI.
Interesting that they quickly closed that thread.
Just giving us the vertical libraries would be amazing. Bonus points for removing the silly tile for the begining of a season on a TV show. Totally useless. Its like yet another goddam throw pillow on my couch.
I’ve been holding off on commenting on the new Roku UI as I have been seeing the changes move along and getting some better. I agree that things overall are more tedious than they used to be. However, that isn’t why I am here. I have a question for you all.
My home internet connection is pretty solid -so much so that time between outages have been measured in years. However, this cold season has changed that and we had our first 24 hour internet outage since taking up this ISP.
It highlighted an issue with Plex on roku that didn’t used to be there and I am wondering if I am missing something. While I could launch the roku plex app and see our local server and library, I could not play any local media. It would try to but hang at 13% and then show a failure message a few minutes later.
Once upon a time, you could specify a server address in the roku plex app but that setting appears to have been removed. Is this expected on roku (web UI had no issues)? I have added my local network subnets that my roku boxes are on in the server network settings and, like I mentioned, I can connect and see my libraries - just not play without an internet connection.
During the outage we had to fall back to our Jellyfin server and roku app.
I don’t believe Plex deserves any ‘points’ bonus or otherwise for removing a useless annoyance they didn’t need to add in the first place. If they had any intelligence at all they would have known adding that tile was stupid and useless and never would have included it in the update. I’m not one who thinks idiots deserve credit for eventually cleaning up a mess that never had to be made.
Also those vertical libraries still aren’t right, it should be moved back to the left side of the screen where it looked nice, not in the middle of the screen.
Had the same experience with a recent internet service outage. It took several tries but I eventually figured out that after you finally get the error message about Plex not being able to display the home screen you can click up to your library tab/menu and from there you can still watch your local content without an internet connection. I don’t know why Plex can’t just detect the absence of an internet connection and automatically switch you over to your libraries without that interminable wait while it tries to display the home screen (or at least give you an error message worded to let you know what to do next), but at least it still works in the end.
