Plex Entitlements

General Discussions
1

Very long time daily lurker. First or second time posting.

What is wrong with the United States of America and the large amount of vocal posters on the Plex forums is a sense of entitlement - being owed something just because someone feels that they are owed. Sure you may pay for Plex Pass (lifetime or monthly) and you have access to features that the nonpaying customers don’t have access to. Plex doesn’t guarantee that the software will work on every platform with every hardware configuration without bugs, but Plex does work.

I paid for a Plex Pass. I have used Plex for over a year and Plex works great! I have PMS installed on a Windows 10 PC with ample memory and processing power. Plex direct streams and transcodes my media to PCs, tablets, phones, fire sticks, televisions, and gaming consoles on my local network and remotely without any problems. Also, I use the Plex DVR service to record local broadcast shows. I very rarely experience any hiccups. When I do, it is usually related to something other than Plex.

Plex owns the software and decides what features to implement, bugs to fix and platforms to support. You may not like it, you may have different opinions on where Plex should concentrate their resources, but Plex is not bound by any law to provide a specific support solution, feature request, bug fix or other request (demands) made by Plex users.

Why would Plex, or anyone else for that matter, want to support or provide software changes to demanding, ungrateful, whiny, and disrespectful forum posters? Posters act like the end of the world is near if Plex doesn’t do exactly what that user wants or envision the software in the same exact way a user does.

If you have issues with your Plex setup, look through the forums or Plex guides for answers. If not there, ask for help while being nice and respectful and maybe you’ll receive it. If you don’t get your question answered it could be that they don’t know the answer. If Plex is buggy on a specific platform, consider moving platforms until the bug is resolved. If you’ve asked for features or reported bugs and Plex has ignored them, then maybe Plex is working on them or maybe not. Again, it is up to Plex to decide how they want to run their company. You are free to leave at any time.

Speaking of leaving at any time, if you are unhappy with Plex and feel it has gone downhill to the point of no return, and you want to leave, then leave. There is no need to trash talk Plex and promote a direct competitor on a Forum owned, maintained and supported by Plex. It is very rude and disrespectful.

I imagine Plex enjoys receiving respectful feedback from its users on added features, programing changes and bugs, but demands and trash talk is not warranted or necessary. Furthermore, I have a choice to use features provided by Plex, whether it is Libraries, Channels, DVR or the new News feature. If you don’t like a feature don’t use it. It is not the end of the world for the feature to be listed with the other features under the server on Plex Android.

I have had an awesome experience with Plex and use it to enjoy all of my media. If Plex doesn’t work for you, look at your file formats (encoding), network, server hardware, OS selection, client devices and Plex troubleshooting guides. After all of that, if Plex won’t work for you no matter what you do, start taking programming classes to create a software package that will provide the features specific to your needs and desires.

I applaud and appreciate all efforts and successes Plex has made to provide a software package that allows me to view my media on any device and with all the support given in the online forums. Keep up the good work.

/rant off

Joe

2

Argumentum ergo decedo.

There is very little wrong to be critical about a product you use and enjoy, especially if one pays for it. Plex, at this point in time, seems to be more focused to be pushing their own corporate hidden agenda (still no public road map available) instead of listening to valid user feedback. Feedback that might even improve their product significantly and would make it truly the best media serving platform. That’s no entitlement, that is users sharing their concerns and wanting to improve the product.

But as long as they keep rolling out new features most users never asked for and ignore valid feature requests / improvements people will automatically look to competing platforms, especially if that competitor seems to be more open to user feedback.

3

@jdbme said:
Plex owns the software and decides what features to implement, bugs to fix and platforms to support. You may not like it, you may have different opinions on where Plex should concentrate their resources, but Plex is not bound by any law to provide a specific support solution, feature request, bug fix or other request (demands) made by Plex users.

That is only partially true: Plex is also bound to implement their software to comply with the local privacy laws in those countries and areas where they sell it. That’s currently probably not the case and come May 2018 in Europe it’s for sure not the case. After that date the current Plex release will be violating EU law!

That’s the nice thing: the times where SW companies could do whatever they wanted are over. Like in manufacturing there will be common standards and requirements to protect customers.

4

I too paid for a lifetime Plex pass and love what Plex has done for me as a personal and private media server.

However ever since Plex got commercial investors of millions that need to be turned into a quick profit and a new board to match Plex has taken a new direction. That’s their choice and right to do so, it’s not something we have to like though.

With no other place to discuss this other then here and no monetary vote anymore it’s logical people come here to disagree with this corporate change towards cloud services in which we the paying users are the product. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Plex at least acknowledged their unsatisfied customers, communication would solve half the disgruntlement, this deafening silence in waiting things to blow over and back to business as usual is worse then any technical bug or the sorry state PMP is in.

I’m glad you’re still super happy with Plex. That is fine as well. Currently I’m not, especially by Plex’ lack of customer service in this negative spiral that’s going on lately.

Good that Plex ecosystem is working for you still, I see a trend where the days for Plex as a local media server for sharing content of dubious origin are over sooner rather then later, if you look at the investors there’s more then a few who won’t stand by that in the long run so they’re rushing in alternative half baked new features to secure a future for Plex, that also are not functional outside of the USA.

But it’s not a competition, my truth isn’t better then your truth.

5

I think most people like the OP forget what long time users have really spent on Plex. I’m not talking about money, I’m talking about time. And I mean a shitload of time tinkering and setting up their personal media server.

It’s like an ex wife or ex lover, you spend hours upon hours (in my case years) trying to build a quality relationship, then all of a sudden they start charging up on you and acting different. They stop doing the little things that made the relationship worth while and in the end become a shell of their former selves.

At that point you’ll probably give a rats ass how much money you’ve spent on the relationship, the real thing they have stolen from you is time that you cannot get back.

Now I for one reverted to using Plex for free and don’t get worked up anymore about it. But users definitely have a right to voice their opinion good or bad. You spend hours of your life trying to build something as high quality as a home media server with a company, then that company dumbs everything down and neglects your user experience in the long run…Don’t expect high praise when you try to pull that move on users.

My 2 cents.

Cheers,