How are you reaching the conclusion there’s a monetary difference to them with different GUI? Are there ads for users who aren’t Plex Pass?
Don’t hold your breath. They will bring the new experience to every platform eventually.
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The fact that we have to ‘‘favorite’’ everything is a ■■■■■■■ stupid move. There is absolutely no justification for this. STOP COPYING EVERYONE ELSE. PLEX STARTED OUT BEING THE ALTERNATIVE TO EVERYONE ELSE! WITH OUR OWN MEDIA. NOW YOU’RE TRYING TO COPY EVERYONE? This is beyond stupid. Stop trying to copy, and be unique. the fact that the original layout was different than everyone else and gave you exactly what we wanted without a bazillion ads was THE PRIDE OF PLEX. It WASN’T like everyone else. And apparently, the roku app can see my server, but because it can’t see it outside of my own network, it’s adamant i don’t have a connection? The ROKU APP SHOULND’T CARE ABOUT OUTSIDE THE NETWORK IF THERE IS A SERVER ON THE SAME DAMNED NETWORK!!
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I have a Roku TV. In order to play ANY new content, I have to restart the Plex server and then reboot the Roku TV. EVERY TIME I add new content. This is crazy frustrating.
When this UI was designed… Did anyone bother to count how many more clicks it takes to do the most basic things? If so, why did that not bother anyone there? How does making anything we were able to do before, harder, longer a better experience?
Honestly, MS does this crap too. But I have a mouse, this is navigation w/ a remote.
I’m trying to accept the fact that this new version is it. There is no going back, but I’m a week in and I still hate it and often rage quit because it’s so unnecessarily different and NOT easy to use.
I also just noticed that Netflix updated it UI and it looks oddly familiar. Is this who you were copying to look cool?
I honestly don’t get this new app/ why it was needed and I would love an answer from an employee.
5 Likes
The UI that was hated in 2019-2020 was reverted and people were greatly appeased. I was one of them.
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There are ads for Plex’s streaming content which is increasingly pushed on to users and mixed in with self-hosted content.
1 Like
I love how the self-hosting option is relegated to, “We’re a streaming platform. Oh yeah, we also let you host your own stuff.”
We’re relegated to “also”. With the news that this new UI is it, I’m definitely investing more time in my Jellyfin configuration and shutting down my Plex instance.
6 Likes
I haven’t settled on a replacement yet. I don’t like any of the options available. I am actively boycotting though. I haven’t used my Plex server in a while now. I am primarily on Apple TV and iOS so I’m only half affected but it’s the principle. My family is mostly on Roku and elderly/autistic and they are struggling with this new UI.
4 Likes
Are you talking about the streaming / live tv aspect of Plex? Because that’s easily disabled in app.plex.tv under Online Media Sources and selecting disable for the content you don’t wish to see. It can’t be done from within the Roku app but whatever you set on app.plex.tv will carry over. I only have my servers and content showing.
Kevin,
You failed man.
When you became a Director of Engineering, your primary job became:
- advocating for customers.
- protecting the Engineers that work under you.
But hey, its 2025 in late-stage capitalist America so its okay, right? So you folded to upper-management, sold-out your customers, and are now standing idly by letting the flak hit the people who do the real work: the Plex developers and the Plex server administrators.
This is a management failure. This is not the developers fault. This is your fault for bowing to pressure from upper management and their VC overlords and letting this dumpster fire of a UX happen.
It is your fault that Roku users were singled-out to be the first to suffer. What were you thinking? Roku users are arguably the most vulnerable, least technical and most-sensitive to change.
You are well aware that a large chunk of your user base are Plex server administrators and those users often represent tens of other users who have no clue why this is happening to them. Why does my 83 year-old Dad have to deal with yet another piece of confusing enshitified technology just to watch a movie? You. You’re the reason.
Of course, none of the blame is placed on you. You were actually doing your job this time by directly responding to the complaints here on this forum.
Kevin, dude, its time to resign. This is it for Plex. Time to start looking for a job like the rest of us. Congratulations, you’ve completely destroyed an entire software ecosystem loved and most importantly already paid-for by millions of people. Put that on your resume.
12 Likes
After waking to this Roku nightmare where none of my elderly relatives can navigate this mess and as a Plex Pass Lifetimer who feels ignored, devalued and the victim of a scam. I have 2 words:
CLASS ACTION.
Plex has failed to live up to the contract. Plex has stated that it is unwilling to remedy the problem of performing the job that I paid for in good faith. This seems pretty blatantly illegal to me although I will have to consult an attorney.
I feel betrayed and angry. I and all the users who have voiced their discontent have been scammed and RIPPED OFF by a company who, judging by this post, intends to stay the course despite it all and fully intends not to honor their contractual obligations.
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100% agree. Kevin needs to go and soon.
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It’s pretty sad and telling that the last post by @McWanke was 10 days and over 200 posts ago. Doesn’t seem like much is happening behind the scenes at Plex, or they are just now in the ignoring phase and hoping that this will at some point just blow over.
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That is exactly what they are doing. They just finished up Plex Pro week and there were questions directly asked about this debacle which were blatantly ignored. They are just hoping we all give in and accept our fate. Which is exactly why we can’t give up.
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They haven’t ignored people. They’ve been very clear it’s not being reverted. They don’t need to keep repeating the same answer just because people can’t accept it.
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@Krazeh you are one of maybe 3 people on here who have been vocal about being okay with this update. That’s a very small minority compared to those upset. Additionally it has been pointed out many times that this new UI/UX is extremely difficult for elderly and people with disabilities to operate. Plex has raised prices, removed features previously paid for, and released a completely crippled and broken app. So yes, they do need to revert it. At least until they get the UI/UX issues worked out, such as moving back to a left side vertical nav, and get some of the basic functionality working correctly, such as downloads and poster size/alignment. It’s really not that hard to understand.
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No, they don’t. They’re under no obligation to do anything, regardless of how many people come onto the forum and make overblown comments about it being crippled or unusable.
Whether or not you agree with their direction, that’s where they’re going. It’s clear they are working to add back in missing functionality so the choice is really rather simple. Either wait till they do or go use something else. Whining about it isn’t going to change anything. Maybe if enough people leave they’ll change direction but until then, what we have is what we have. Neither is claiming they’re ignoring people or hate users.
Nothing is being overblown. Tell me in what universe is it acceptable to take a product that works, that people pay for, and overnight replace it with one that barely does the basics. Barely. Then expect those paying customers to just wait who knows how long for fixes? It has been 5 months since the mobile apps dropped and they barely work. That’s just not okay.
Now they expect thousands+ of Roku users to do the same? Wait 1,2,3+ years for them to get through the backlog of fixes for an app that already had a working version all the while still paying their subscriptions? Sorry but that sounds crazy to anyone.
That’s not even getting into the issues for disabled and elderly, which they apparently do not care about. And neither does Netflix, Amazon, Etc because they’re all following this awful top horizontal nav that completely goes against any good UX practices.
We could also get into how they asked multiple times for feedback and then basically ignored it all and said, “too bad.” Who does that? It immediately erodes trust and makes people not want to give feedback in the future.
The new experience needed much more time in beta before release. Months more, or longer. It was clearly not ready. Any other company doing this would already have multiple lawsuits and lost revenue from cancellations.
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Do they have an obligation to revert? No I suppose they don’t. Would it be in their best interest to do so? Absolutely. If they want to show good faith to their customers then they would accept this as a failure and start over.
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