Newish user, here’s my 2 cents on the matter.
I haven’t looked into specific reasons plugins are being pulled, but i would have to guess its probably technical, legal and financial, all rolled into one. Plugins are a nightmare for software as a whole, can be used in an exploitative manner, put a burden on support, potentially make a parent company liable etc etc… Plugins also take away the ability to monetize a lot of content, and can open up legal issues for the parent companies as well. It’s a tough call, but I honestly assume it’s usually a money thing for more established companies, and a burden issue for smaller - just my opinion, not declaring the intentions of Plex.
I get it to a degree. I personally enjoy the ability to use/create plugins for any and all software I use - I like to customize and add to already existing software, regardless of how well it may be out of the box. I also get the aforementioned issues plugins can bring - I have been focused in software QA for 6 years, and have been in development since I was in high school. I also get both sides of the money issue - companies need to earn money, but there is a balance to keep between profiting and out greed.
For me, the lose of plugins is a hard sacrifice, but Plex is going to do what they are going to do - they clearly did not regard the user protest to it as anything meaningful, so that’s apparently that. Best of luck to Plex, hope the ability to monetize outweighs however many users your may have lost or might lose in the future. I’m sure Plex will be fine in the end, up or down. But really, plugins weren’t the “final straw” for me - I was weighing the benefits, and decided to take a look at the forum for some pearls of wisdom… hoo boy.
Mod’s have certainly made it clear they don’t give a hoot what those people feel, and that they can piss off. I get that decisions have been made (however misguided or shortsighted or whatever you want to say about it), but the apathetic, almost hostile response to people interested in plugins remaining is… an Interesting way to respond to people paying for a service to say the least. Not being a long-time forum user, I don’t know the hierarchy of the Plex Totem-Pole response team, but the threads i’ve read to have left me feeling like a response is needed from … whoever is higher up on that Totem Pole. Not sure if that’s coming, but I feel it is needed - and I’m not even he one that was being responded to. Yikes.
Fanboys are doing as fanboys will do, defending any and all decisions their god-emperors pass down with abrasive hostility and a demeaning tone. These people exist in any scene, and they certainly are a double-edged sword for any business, one which I look to for advice about a product, but not one I expect any thought-out criticism or suggestions from. It’s got a religious-like fervor to it. Always good to stay loyal to your chosen products, but gate-keeping criticism, mocking current, new or old customers with anything negative to say, and the “holier than thou” attitude really turn people off of a product they might be interested in (**this comment itself would likely get a few “well, we don’t want YOUR kind of user involved in this product anyway…”) responses in a busier thread!).
I’ll say it again, yikes. If the lack of interest in the user base response (however small it may actually be or is claimed to be) was the kindling for this fire, the response from the above archetypes was the unexpected gasoline that was water baloon-ed into this now-raging inferno. Hostility from the fanboys and apathy from the Mod’s are the closer for me - while I can respect the mods consistency and sympathize with the nightmare that is forum administration as aw whole, the toxicity shtick that seems to be ignored (maybe even approved of) is it for me.
