This is obviously speculation but anytime a company starts cutting the fat you know they are in trouble. How much trouble depends on how decisive the company is but no healthy company decides it’s a good idea to get rid of features (and I do not for a second believe the 2% of users use plugins line because trakt) that the competition still has.
It obviously impossible to say how bad it is over there, but if they start cutting even more I’d be worried about anyone who has a lifetime plex pass.
I took their announcement as a very positive step. Everyone bitches that Plex needs to communicate better with their customers and focus on fixing things. They do just that and people lose their minds. I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and see how it rolls out. Beefing up Subtitles, Sync and Android should make a lot of people happy. And I think the cries of the sky is falling regarding plug-in’s is premature. It sounds like they want to discount the current methodology, remove the opportunity for new, casual users ‘discovering’ this feature only to be disappointed while Plex works out a new method. I’d be very surprised if Plex wanted to get rid of valued tools like WebTools, ExportTools, and Trackt. I’ve seen more than one Employee and Ninja recommend these tools to users.
I don’t know how you reach that cut features means a troubled company…
First, they didn’t say that they were going to bring plugins back with a new method they said “if we were to build the feature again, we’d do it very differently”. There’s a world of difference.
Second, as an android user (mobile/fire tv) I can say the entire department should be fired. Its a clusterfuck and impossible to use without daily headaches. This one blog doesn’t make up for over a year of no response about persistant, annoying bugs.
And subtitles is a minor feature used by very few vocal users.
No, Plex is a sinking ship. First privacy (didn’t really care or understand that one frankly, but others seemed upset), then the removing the cloud, and now the people jumping ship because android hasn’t been fixed yet.
Like I said though, I don’t know how bad it is. They could be super cautious and they’re still ‘good’, but they aren’t doing great.
Exactly what I though @CWallace. End of story: some people will always complain.
And btw. most users don’t care about trakt or don’t even know it. Trakt does not have a gazillion of users (I read about quarter a million in 2014). For standard users trakt doesn’t serve any purpose, this is why I believe that merely 2% of plex users actually use the plugins. Just because trakt is vital for SOME users does not mean that everybody uses it.
By focusing, less important or less used features need to go. Google anounced to kill inbox recently to focus solely on Gmail, are they a sinking ship? Guess not. Decisions have to be made and I think this is a good one. Focus on core, exactly what people wanted. Looking forward to an improved experience.
It’s incredibly common for software companies to remove lesser used features to simplify the code base and make it more maintainable.
I’m not happy about them removing plugins either, but this is not indicative of a company in trouble.
Someone tell Google as they’ve been circling the drain for years by this logic…
Maintaining old code cost money
Releasing new features or reworking code but being hamstrung by keeping it backwards compatible cost money
It sucks but I’d rather they cut these then have them as buggy orphaned functionality that can potentially break something else. Lets them focus on fixing the core parts of the application
From:
Will there be a replacement for plugins down the road?
We do believe there is a better approach to plugins than our existing, ancient protocol that plagues our app teams, though we don’t have anything to share on that front at this time.
This is what leads me to believe that they are looking at it but don’t have anything solid to talk about yet. Maybe I’m projecting sunshine in the dark but that’s the way I’m looking at it.
I’m not an Android user but have read enough posts to feel the pain. That’s why I was encouraged that they are choosing Android as one of their focus points. Even though it has no effect either way on myself. Having a strong, functional Android client is important for Plex as a platform. And it’s about time. I was also encouraged by the 7.6.0 release notes on the Android client. It seemed to have way more fixes in it than most client releases. I see that 19 days later, they’ve rolled out another release.
Again I think this is a feature that makes the Plex platform strong if it works well. As I’m getting older I’m getting the feeling that if you need this feature, you really need and appreciate it.
Plex is doing a lot of stuff that isn’t “the way I’d do it”, but I am rooting for them in the long run.
I don’t take this as a sign of good days ahead, nor signs of gloom and doom…more a likely example of pragmatism in practice. Just speculation mind you, but it seems to me its better to master one than jack of trades everything.
I think they have too much on their plate to be efficient in their design department. It seems like a developmental mess to me.
In fact, I might even speculate that perhaps they brought about this situation themselves by not having the foresight to see that plugins were NOT something that should have been directly supported, but certainly not discouraged either.
The early to mid phase of development created a monster that now is unmanageable IMO. This is likely an attempt to find sanity in the dev department.
I don’t believe there ever will be an alternative, by that time the users who find it vital to use plugins will have moved on to some other product and Plex won’t be able to win them back.
Well, at least the finally realized that Cloud Sync was a trainwreck.
LOL
great post. plugins=sinking ship and fire android team.
I wasn’t super stoked on the plugins being removed although I use far less of them than I used too.
I personally thought the cloud sync was one of the worst feature ideas that had come out. The idea of hosting content (and potential pirated) on Amazon never sounded like a great idea.
Sick post. This should be part of a best of group.
Well, I did say this:
If their core function (server/client) was bringing in the users and growth they needed then they would have stuck with making those stronger. But now they’re pivoting to be a source of content themselves. Content that doesn’t require a server.
Remember they got big investors (worth $10 million) and those companies require a return on investment even if it leaves Plex a shadow of its former self.
Plex’s biggest investors are media and marketing investors. So, my prediction: News and Web shows will grow to the point where hiding them will no longer be an option (why would their investors want us to hide them? it’s only temporary). There will be more ads and they’ll slowly become more intrusive. They’ll move the focus so the app is more like Stremio than the current Plex.
So yes, Plex is in trouble.
I don’t have a problem that Plex additionally becomes a place for online content, in principle I am highly positive about that because I like content I consume to be in one place. My subjective “problem” is, that the online content that is added to Plex is totally uninteresting for me. I don’t live in the US so I don’t care about US-news and the webshows I don’t watch either. The streaming/online services that I use (Netflix, Youtube, Google Play Movies) will never make their way to Plex I am certain, so I myself do not benefit a lot from these additions. On the other side, they don’t hurt me either.
From a business point of view I understand the move. Lifetime Plex pass users don’t give a penny anymore after buying the pass. Introducing content, for which you get paid by the content provider gives an opportunity to monetise this very user base to pay for further development.
Plex Inc. is a company, and companies are founded to make money. They neither are wellfare nor are they there to serve the users as their holy task.
Dunno how this works in embyland, but paying once for a product and while still indefinetly benefitting from on-going development “for free” does not feel like a sustainable business model. Tell me any other business that actually works that way, I would be suprised to read any names.
I definitely share your concern. The message I received was a bit different but yes, if you mean plex is in trouble because they are shifting away from their core offering (server-client), then we’re on the same page. I originally thought you meant they were trouble financially but it doesn’t matter much ultimately. It feels like the product is changing in ways than it’s original intent and that would be a huge bummer.
Not sure this is totally accurate. I agree, netflix, amazon etc will never again be on plex in it’s current iteration. No doubt about it.
However some (me included) feel like this latest move would indicate that this is the ultimate goal- to be a one stop streaming resource ultimately moving away from the original goal of streaming your own content from anywhere https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/plex-continues-pivot-away-from-servers-offers-web-shows/
This latest move doesn’t impact me personally a ton. I used to use a lot of plugins and only have a few left. The concern is more about the direction this might indicate. The removal of these while may in fact help future developments however there’s no viable alternative and there’s clearly not going to be one is what jumps out to me.
This coupled with the fact their response is taken directly out of the Comcast PR playbook of nonsense, “Only 2% of our users use XYZ” is disheartening and a bit patronizing to boot.
Also I’d venture a guess <2% use any of the “features” that have been introduced in the last few years.
Plex’s main goal will always be to stream your media. These extras are just that, extras. That’s why there is an option to turn these off if you don’t want. It’ just another way to help supplement your media.
A lot of people are concerned that you guys are moving away from that, or at least with the unusual “business decisions” Plex is making as of late. Perhaps more transparency is in order and not vague assurances buried in forums that most people don’t use. Get ahead of this now before it becomes too big to deal with.
We had a while blog post on the recent changes. https://www.plex.tv/blog/subtitles-and-sunsets-big-improvements-little-housekeeping/
And yet people are still not happy. When pressed, we’re given excuses or told that you don’t discuss business decisions publicly.
Look, I realize I’m not a Plex Pass holder and have no place to speak here, but the way Plex is being run with half-baked and discarded features, a huge list of outstanding bugs, and obvious shift towards ad-driven web content that few care about is exactly why I went with my gut and avoided the investment. It’s a slap in the face to those who have invested and built your audience as well as all the developers who contributed to the Plex ecosystem free of charge bringing in even more users / potential ad targets.
I sincerely hope you’re right and Plex does stick to its roots as a personal media server, but in light of recent events, I won’t hold my breath.
