I’d pretty much agree completely with dane22 and would have wrote almost the same response.
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My biggest gripe here is the use of the 3% number. If Plex wants to clean up the code…great. If Plex wants to say it can be done a better way…great. If Plex wants to put emphasis on other areas (that may make the business more sustainable…great. But, please do not use the 3% number without some context.
We got VR but what percentage of users are actually using VR (I can’t imagine it is over 3%).
We got PodCasts but what percentage are actually using Podcasts? Think Photos, News, new paid/curated channels, etc.
Just tell us that new features, after release, will have 9 months to reach 7% usage rates (totally made up numbers BTW) of the feature will be pulled.
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@elan I appreciate your response and I am happy to see new-school API on client devices (As a plugin developer I would like to have them documentated and available for public usage as well as to have them on server side ;)).
I fully understand that it does not make sense to maintain an old skeleton within your code base but I would appreciate if you and your team can consider maybe some new basic approach of a container framework which could be used for unofficial third party plugins. It looks like that your code basis is already prepared for such kind of things looking at the latest features Plex has released (news, web shows, podcasts,…).
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Absolutely incorrect. I know one of them well enough to converse quite frequently through email. That ninja in turn knows the other one that no longer visits regularly and has said they have same opinion - Plex “gave up” on the channel API.
Now it would seem they have little to no reason to come back at all.
Some, but perhaps if Plex hadn’t neglected the channel functionality, allowing/assigning more employees to support instead of what seemed like only Ninja’s, some devs might not have left and new ones would have been more forthcoming.
Again, not fully correct - if you look at it that way, 90% of SUPPORTED plug-ins were illegal because they scraped information from sites whose TOS and policies prevented “scraping” of content.
Most of the plug-ins forum should have been removed if using illegality.
And @cayars - you disagree with me a lot - that doesn’t make me incorrect.
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@daeks - Thanks for thinking outside the box. That is the most optimistic possibility I’ve seen since the announcement.
However, I’m not holding my breath and would advise the same.
(Yes @elan - I’m a cynical SOB due to the direction the company has taken over the past 2-ish years - if I weren’t a lifetime pass user I’d have cancelled long ago - I’m just glad I became a pass lifetime-r before the price went up exorbitantly)
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Of course it doesn’t and that doesn’t stop me from admiring you, your knowledge and contributions either. We agree a lot more then we disagree on things!
But having walked in those shoes and talked to many devs and ninjas on a daily basis, I just don’t agree with what you said as a general statement. Sure it could have happened to one or two people and I surely don’t doubt that. Lots of people have come and gone for various reasons.
Keep in mind anyone can/could develop plugins. This wasn’t a Ninja only effort by any means and many plugins and useful apps weren’t done by Ninjas.
I think what dane22 was getting at, surely I am, is that it’s far different to design plugins for Plex than for Kodi for example. One has many “restrictions” and “limitations” due to the nature of the media having to stream through a server VS just consuming it which is much, much easier. On one you have local data available to access where the other you have to use web API calls to ask for specific data and send data specific ways which has more overhead and less freedom but that’s the wonderful world of web development.
With Plex you sometimes have to get creative in how you do something plus have to be fully aware that the app is just one of many things running at a time on the server vs something running locally where these types of issues aren’t nearly as important. It’s just different even those it can appear similar. The server CPU could be pegged at 100% CPU due to transcodes taking place, etc.
Even with that said, I personally think most plugins get removed because they stop working. The host site changes formats, CSS, XML, JASON, etc and this can call for a rewrite effort needed for the app to continue to find and pull the data. Sites, get more clever as time goes on with fancier tools that obfuscate URLS and makes finding them more difficult as well as burring them in embedded javascript etc. It just makes it sometimes a loosing proposition to keep some plugins working well. Code gets more and more sloppy to the point of it being a burden to work on, etc and the devs just loose interest or maybe don’t even use the plugin themselves so they don’t have the interest in working on it anymore. Lots of reasons, actually.
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Yeah more than one went straight to Emby. 
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Hmmm…
Once more a guess, without knowing!
And I also have a guess:
@JamminR was talking about gerk and Mike_DM, and if so, he was 100% wrong, since both are still Ninja’s, but for personal reasons, stopped posting in the public forums, and devoted their time to something else within the Plex Universe.
In fact, only a fraction of Ninja’s are very active in the forums, since lots of us are doing testing and other work, in order to keep the wheels turning.
I do feel sad, when people simply just jumps to conclusions!
And when said, then yes, I’m sure that in the past, there’s been a Ninja jumping straight to another solution, and vice-versa. After all, Ninja’s are simply power users, that has been embraced with moderation rights on the forum
@dane22 - I don’t know gerk, and to be honest, I didn’t even realize Mike_DM was infrequent.
(But now that you mention, yes, it would seem that way)
I’m not jumping to conclusions. As I said, I am in reasonably frequent communication with one of the people. And though, sure, in a court of law it’s considered “hearsay”, they’ve indicated to me another Ninja stopped regularly visiting for similar reason.
Heck, for all we know, perhaps either gerk or Mike_DM left due to similar reasons and stated it was other to save face. (Not jumping to conclusions - just a possibility, even if low)
I’ll refrain from answering any more here in this thread, just wanted to say, that I hate trolling!
Protesting is not trolling (but of course, can be)
troll
trōl/
verb
gerund or present participle: trolling1. informalmake a deliberately offensive or provocative online post with
the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them.
I do not try to upset anyone - I, and many here, are the ones who are upset with Plex’s direction. Sure, some users are fine/dandy, many of my shared users are ignorant, but it seems a good portion of us who support/supported the company are being ignored.
I’d almost say Plex has been trolling us lately - but we all know Plex isn’t trying to upset us. That just don’t seem to care lately about what many of us have to say.
Because I care, I keep trying, along with many others, to make a difference.
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Very well said 
Plug-ins should be kept, and an API for writing them should be maintained. I understand them not being officially supported, but as someone that has been through many of these battles in the ISV world, this will cause users to flee. It’s a poor management decision…
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What are you going to flee to?
Your two top contenders are Kodi and Emby.
Kodi isn’t client/server so that’s a no go right from the start for many people but does have numerous plugins.
Emby supports plugins for meta-data, trakt, etc but not for video. Emby isn’t going to let you watch ABC, NBC, FOX, etc via plug as it’s not allowed and against their TOS.
Depending on your device of choice you may be able to run Kodi on it. This works just fine for Shield TV or computers and many other devices. You can then load up any plug in you want for alternate content and you can also install the Plex for Kodi plug-in to use Plex from inside of Kodi.
Granted this won’t help remote users or people you share with but they can setup something similar. In any case Plex is designed to stream YOUR media and this type of setup gives you the best of both worlds at the expense of having the correct device/hardware and setup.
With all the time and effort they’ve been putting into News, Podcasts, and Web Shows, I had forgotten this is what Plex is designed to do.
Maybe we should remind the devs and Plex leadership of this.
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While I have not got to the point to test Video plugins on Emby I’m pretty confident that Emby has all sorts of Video plugins. As a matter of fact their own developer regularly develop them unlike Plex where mostly Ninja’s have been doing the development and maintenance.
Also, your TOS statement is incorrect.
To name a few…
https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/7802-cnet-tv-channel-plugin/
https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/8457-itv-uk-channel-plugin/
https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/8222-vevo-channel-plugin/
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I think he is referring to the networks sites terms of service.
such as this one from CBS
Except as provided in Section 4(a) or otherwise expressly authorized by us in writing, you may not either directly or through the use of any software, device, internet site, web-based service or other means download, stream capture, store in a database, archive or otherwise copy any part of the Services or Content; upload, sell, rent, lease, lend, broadcast, transmit or otherwise disseminate, distribute, display or perform any part of the Services or Content; license or sublicense any part of the Services or Content; or in any way exploit any part of the Services or Content.
(i am not a lawyer)
I was just about to update why I said it was incorrect and disagreed and post a similar TOS chunk from YouTube’s website because it make the argument much simpler. But lets say its the same or similar.
Give that… the Chrome store has plugins and extensions to block ads and download videos from YouTube. Last I checked both YouTube and Chrome are owned by Alphabet. There are tons of official Plex plugins at this very moment doing the same for the last 5-10 years. If this was really such a big deal would they be running at this very moment ?
PS: On my 65 mph freeway I zoom past my local sheriff at 70mph every day while waving and smiling at him. I’m not a lawyer either.
EDIT: FYI, if you click on the CNET TOS it will take you to the CBS TOS. The same excerpt you have quoted. And yet a CNET plugin on Emby exists which I linked above.
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Those are not Emby plugins but the older MediaBrower plugins. Look at the last date of any of those threads. Install Emby and look at the catalog and you will see there isn’t any video plugins.
The plugins are “backend” functionality like I mentioned previously. Go read the Dev TOS and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Emby doesn’t allow it for a good reason.
Plex is headed down the same path IMHO and with good reason.
If we see you missing from the forums for a few days we’ll assume you waved one two many times. 
I’m one of those unlucky people who would get pulled over for 66 in a 65.
Except there is no Emby plugin for any video content. They were for the old MediaBrowser platform. The same forums are used so old info will pertain to old software.
Without digging deeper:
No code contribution or plug-in shall directly violate or otherwise circumvent or cause the Emby product as a whole to violate or circumvent any laws as governed by the United States of America .
This includes but is not limited to:
- Directly violating the Terms of Use or Terms of Service of any source of data
- Using ‘web scraping’ techniques to obtain data from a web site.
So if you need to scrape the site to gather information you can’t do this. If the website TOS forbids you to use the video in a manner such as a plugin or 3rd party you can’t do this.
If you were able to get a license agreement with a 3rd party site such as Pluto.tv, Tubi.TV or similar and used authorized APIs consistent with the agreement then you would have a shot at making a plugin and getting it supported and into the plugin catalog. But you can’t just willy/nilly use information you aren’t licensed to use as that goes against the development policy you need to sign.
This is the same path it seems Plex is taking for good measure. The risk isn’t worth it. When you partner with hardware manufactures and have agreements with “stores” that host your apps you need to live up to those agreements as well.
