You don’t really accept others’ opinions either right? You just like to kiss Plex’s ass, even though they don’t fix jack ■■■■ or improve the experience whatsoever. Yeah, making something paid that has been free for years and doesn’t cost you anything is so logical!! No, I didn’t get a refund, I had a one year sub for Plex pass, but decided to cancel it and not continue paying for it, because that money will never go to useful features and bug fixes, also there are barely any pass benefits.
You’re saying the feature doesn’t cost them a dime, and yet they have developers and other staff who built that feature and support that feature, plus a lot of supporting infrastructure that the product relies on more broadly (because this feature doesn’t work all on its own). I’m guessing all of that costs a bit more than a “dime.”
So now Plex is asking a larger percentage of their customers to pay for the product. That may irritate those who are used to getting it totally for free, but it’s unrealistic to assume Plex can survive as a company in a business model where so many people – who absolutely rely on all those things that cost “more than a dime” – aren’t paying their way.
As others have pointed out, there are other free or lower cost alternatives to Plex. Folks should absolutely consider them if they think there is no longer sufficient value in Plex. I’ve done that for many a product where the increased cost no longer works for me. But to stand on a belief that, because it’s always been free it must therefore always be free, makes no sense in the real world (not saying that’s what you’re arguing, but many others seem to be).
I also find it disingenuous to focus so much complaining on this particular feature. They had to choose something to [better] monetize, and to me this choice reflects some amount of restraint. They could have, instead, started charging every user who is running a server. Imagine how that would have gone over.
2 Likes
I’m not the stupid one. The product is NOT free. It costs them money to build it, enhance it and support it. Just who do you think should be paying for all that?
Stop focusing on this one feature as the boogeyman. They had to find more ways to monetize the product. They chose this feature to do that. They could have made other choices that would have been more painful to more people (e.g., charged everyone for running a server, or put ads on everything we see). But the bottom line, unless you think they’re just being greedy, is they have to pay the bills for giving us a product.
1 Like
They don’t enhance and support the product. They don’t fix bugs, don’t make new useful features, instead they remove old ones. I focus on this feature, since this is the feature they are paywalling, duh… This feature was already developed years ago, and doesn’t need much maintaining. It’s basically a core feature of a media streaming app, one of the most basic things. They could actually make a better experience by fixing years old bugs and make new useful features instead of focusing on investor related ■■■■ like the Plex hosted, licensed stuff. That way more people would pay them, because more people would see a reason to pay them. Plex only shows that they don’t give a ■■■■ about self hosters anymore.
Can we please leave off with the hyperbolic statements that Plex doesn’t add new features or fix bugs? Such statements are patently inaccurate. As an example, a new (beta) server version was released earlier today:
This release added a feature which as been requested for a while: The ability to filter one’s movie libraries by Dolby Vision. It may seem like a small thing, but it was something that had been directly requested for some time.
It also fixed a couple of annoying bugs. The first being an annoying bug where marking an episode as played wouldn’t advance the next episode in the series to the Continue Watching hub. The second was a transcoder fix.
And this was a fairly light release as far as new features and bug fixes are concerned. Another recent release added a feature which had been heavily requested: The ability to encode to H.265 when transcoding.
And those are just a couple of recent enhancements. But, of course, you must have a Plex Pass in order to access PMS betas (a pretty compelling reason on its own to subscribe), so some folks may not have seen the most recent features/fixes yet. But they do exist and will eventually make it out to everyone via a standard release.
(Note: I’m not suggesting that Plex doesn’t introduce bugs from time-to-time. But I believe, on the whole, that the product has steadily improved over time. This is a support forum where folks report their problems. So we largely get to see Plex in its poorest light here. Not everyone experiences the problems reported in the forums.)
5 Likes
Pardon my ignorance of about 280 posts here when i stopped reading and skipped to end.
I have a Lifetime PlexPass.
(I was fortunate enough to get it years ago as Plex was removing features I used the same time they were raising lifetime pass costs (why do i feel i’m in groundhog day?))
After april 29th 2025, if I add a new family member to my server, will they be able to watch remotely without a pass?
I’ve seen answered repeatedly that as long as server owner has a pass now, people now watching will keep watching. I’ve not seen clearly that ‘new’ additions will be able to watch without a pass of their own.
Yes. As long as the server owner has a Plex Pass new invitees will be able to stream remotely from that server. If they are also invited to a server where the owner does not have a Plex Pass, they will not be able to remotely stream from that server without either a Plex Pass of their own or the Remote Pass.
-Shark2k
2 Likes
See the quick reference chart that I created in an earlier post.
@usrplex I’ll try to answer…
I would guess quite a few, since buying the Plex Pass opened a lot of usefulness to the Plex Server user base who, like me (and I’m assuming here) wanted to “cut the cord” and base an entertainment system around their personal media and (not all) OTA integration which would require the Plex Pass to use fully.
But Plex themselves added a whole lot of those “leeches” by turning it into a Ad based social hub model.
They decided to go after the “Entertainment Consumer” not the “Plex Server User” who was funding them at the time, then things like “where to watch” which just points you to some other “subscription” based content app by interjecting that code into the base code of the server system (see this thread for context and the fact it took 1004 votes before we could even hide this from our servers.)
Yes they are a business and as I’ve stated (multiple times) I understand that they want to make money and I am all for it, but once again the changes seemed* to be saying they could charge money to people, they invited to use their program for free, for watching MY content if I invited them to do so. As stated (also multiple times) this is why I came to ask questions, because the way it read was making me believe this was the case (*I was corrected and told it wouldn’t effect me or anyone I invited to share my content with, but the fear, to me was valid and may still be in the future).
As to the “bugs to be fixed” comment, Have you seen the amount of issues related to bugs on this forum? And I’m not talking about the PEBCAK ones, but the actual bugs that not only seem to ever get fixed, but are reintroduced when one of the “New Features” that are implemented for the “Entertainment Consumer” not the “Plex Server User base”.
Plex brought the Ad Supported content (what I call the Pluto Model) so that’s on them.
I thought the pay wall for the Server base user was the monetization system? “You want to open up the full power of your Plex Server? Subscribe to the Plex Pass or even buy the lifetime Plex Pass and super charge your personal entertainment system!” It’s what got me to buy into the company.
Yes the original “Fork this program from Kodi” model, which is what brought us Plex.
Until they start changing what we paid for to start funding something else and raise the cost, then questions abound.
Shocking? No
Logical? Sure
Obvious? Maybe, but Plex has some culpability in why there are more “leech” users and why it’s gotten this way. The “Plex Server User Base” has been far from quiet on the direction Plex has taken even since I came aboard.
I use Jellyfin (I’ve been running it along side of Plex since I bought my server machine) and have donated (and even did some pre-beta testing for developers through GitHub on the Roku integration when I was laid up for an injury and stuck in the house).
But since Plex and Jellyfin started out as the same concept and one went with monetization and the other didn’t, I wouldn’t bash on Jellyfin. It may have a learning curve to use as a Daily Media Server compared to Plex, but it’s the “leech” user (as you say) that Plex decided to court and start sending the “Plex Server User Base” into the basement, in my opinion.
On this statement, we both agree!
But I will add, Plex could use a little more straight and to the point wording.
If I and other “Plex Server User Base” Plex Pass owners, were/are confused about what these “new rules” are saying and how they effect us and our users, just put in the exact wording to dispel the confusion at the onset, not word it in such a way to make us question that this is not the end of us sharing with family/friends coming soon or in the future, when they find this doesn’t satisfy the “balance” of their goal to monetize.
2 Likes
The absence of the word “Your” kind of does it for me. I mean when I’m discussing my personal media, I tend not to include “everyone’s personal media” in the conversation.
Yet, all of the development since purchasing my Plex Pass hasn’t gone towards my media,
- Still waiting on full Audiobook integration and Comic Book/E-Book integration.
- They took away the means to listen to my choice of Podcasts (not actually my media, I know) but it fell into the line of using Plex as my “one stop program/app” to access my media my way. Now forced to use another app, not Plex.
- They seemed to have just abandoned the Photo App they touted in September of '24.
- Removed Tidal integration (never used myself, but I get why some enjoyed it).
- Took away “Watch Together” a great way to bring family and friends separated by distance to come together over “personal media”.
But hey they’ve worked on adding such outstanding features! Things like…
- Arcade (which I saw a very miniscule amount of requests or excitement for).
- Added the “Where to Watch” function, “Hey want to watch something we don’t have on our “Pluto Style” added feature? How about we interject other streaming services into your server searches?” (Porn results are free too, as an added bonus)
This is something we can agree on, but I’m just pointing out the slowly disappearing concept touted by Plex at the beginning, this is “Your media Your way” to a minimal comment in forums or a small mention in a long blog post of “we have no intention of abandoning personal media”. This was the main point in everything Plex was pushing when people started to back them monetarily when they were developing the PMS.
If you want to call it “wringing my hands” so be it, to me it’s just looking at the writing on the wall and not just walking by and ignoring it.
1 Like
Thanks for those that clarified that going forward, yes, server PlexPass will still have no-charge remote users. At least for some time.
Plex hasn’t been our media, our way, for a long time now.
The more often I see Plex say “we’re not ending your personal media”, the more i cringe and feel as though that’s writing on the wall and convincing themself.
It’s why i have Plex. My media. Easy setup. I’m old and technical enough i could set up open source apps… i just work long enough that i don’t want to.
I’m glad that I and family can still watch from my server, but helping my seniors family members turn off all the non-personal content when just wanting to view any of my family videos and photos has been a nightmare since Plex changed from ‘your media’ based to “everyone’s media” based.
3 Likes
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Plex, the company, not really do much aside from login information when there’s a direct remote stream? Pretty stupid to lock a feature with basically no overhead behind a paywall. I could understand locking out the Plex Relay, or even sharing a remote server with other users, but blocking a direct connection because no payment is ridiculous.
The only reason I have a Plex Pass now is because I used my server for free for streaming my media to myself while I was out of the house, and overtime I wanted to share with others since it was a good experience. If Remote Streaming had been behind a paywall back then, I would have learned Jellyfin instead, I’m not paying $7 to try for a month, that’s ridiculous.
Discussed ad nauseam in the 351 posts above. It’s not just about the hardware and service costs to support remote streaming, there’s software development and other costs that need to be recovered as Plex Media Server is a commercially developed as opposed to a community developed product.
If Jellyfin meets your needs, then jump across to it. If it doesn’t then consider getting a Lifetime Plex Pass now before the price increase. I’ve not regretted the decision I made 10 years ago to get one. For me the benefits have been HW transcoding, intro and credit skipping, and free mobile apps.
Why I stick with Plex compare to Jellyfin, is the ease in which Plex allows me to share my server with friends and family, and for them to set up and account. I also find the user interface a little more polished and it integrates well with a lot of other apps that I use.
3 Likes
Excuse me. I read this post only partialy. Is your chart confirmed from official source?
So your chart will be valid after the 29th of april?
Thank you for your time!
Follow the link in the very first post of this thread. It has an extensive FAQ section which covers all of these questions.
1 Like
Just something I put together from reading the blog and associated FAQ as many are finding it confusing.
1 Like
The blog and associated FAQ are a lot of words which people are struggling with, otherwise there wouldn’t be all of these questions and confusion repeatedly through this thread.
There really needs to be an official graphic similar to the one I knocked up which sets out the requirements very simply.
The changes are creating a lot of angst and confusion amongst users, and a long and wordy blog post rather than a simple graphic is a missed opportunity.
3 Likes
Yes. Thank you very much for your time!
I checked the FAQ and its clear now!
People’s reading comprehension needs work. I can just imagine how life must be like for them living day to day being confused all the time.
1 Like
For some Plex users English isn’t their primary language.
1 Like
