Watch together going away in app

This is BS! Why do they remove it? I use it almost every day and this is one of the main reasons i got plex!

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Please don’t remove watch together

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The worst parts about this whole situation are:

  • There was no community polling about how important this feature was to users and if they should make sure it is contained within the new app release.
  • The response they are giving everyone is a typical copy/paste response that shows no signs of caring about how important this feature is to the community.
  • Even after the massive outpouring of anger, sadness, and frustration with their decision to gut one of the best features… Plex is still unwilling to even state they will definitely be adding the feature back in the future.

Plex already has my money but I have convinced a lot of people over the years to use their service. I will have many more opportunities to refer other people to use them for their media libraries, but will emphatically recommend against doing so unless we get firm assurances that this feature either won’t be removed or will be added as one of the first post-release updates for the new app.

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I use Watch Together every week, please dont remove it. Its one of the best feature of Plex.

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I don’t need to rant about keeping this feature, but I will say that Plex has been seen as the alternative to streaming giants. Don’t become like them, lot of people that use my server left those companies behind. I’m stacking massive collection of content, almost passing Amazon.

I remember when Netflix mailed out movies, it was better then Blockbuster. Then they block password sharing and placed ads on basic services. Lets not become like them.

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This is an incredibly short-sighted decision that can only be explained by corporate greed. If this is enacted, I will be switching over to Jellyfin in an instant.

Good luck getting another round of funding from your investors when half of your userbase jumps ship. (as a word of advice to anyone leaving, delete your account so the investors can see the numbers plummet)

It’s actually wild that the first time I’m hearing of this change is because I checked the forums to ask why media conversions do not work properly… I guess I got my answer to that question very quickly.

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Unfortunately you’re naive not to have noticed how many CORPORATE PARTNERS and individuals who are on the executive board that also happen to be imported from major media companies. Plex may have less than 150 employees but they sure are a behemoth of a company in this space. Unfortunately they will do whatever their VC investors tell them to do.

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I actually blocked my primary living room Fire Stick from updating the Plex client long ago… I still actually have the TV episode grid view AND separate On Deck and Continue Watching on that one.

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Honestly, taking a step back, the whole idea of a lifetime license is unsustainable for most products. Lifetime license to use the current version that you have makes much more sense. What they should have done was sell one year licenses that entitle the user to all releases in the calendar year. If you don’t renew, you’re stuck on an older version.

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They can eventually block sign-ins from clients and servers below a certain version, although it’s been years since they’ve raised the minimum version. I was running v1.19x of the server until just a few months ago and didn’t have any issues at all. I only upgraded because I eventually experimented and found that the UI changes I hated actually didn’t take effect for me on my living room client because I had long ago blocked that from updating.

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That’s a THEM, Plex Inc., problem then. MANY and I mean MANY loyal and dedicated supporters have opted to pay the monthly $5 plan to help the devs maintain the app. Many have had a REALISTIC view on continuing Lifetime Licenses and that they were a bad business model. HOWEVER, Plex Inc. and their executive panel have left their business model stay this way since its inception. Public discussion about how poorly the Lifetime Licenses are, while being perceived as valuable, do not equate to quality nor a sustainable model for Plex as a suite of apps across many platforms. I do not know what you expect for the Plex consumer/user-base to do when the community at large have discussed this multiple times throughout the past decade. The ones who enjoy hemorrhaging their VC money seems to be Plex Inc., not us users.

This can be very problematic considering Plex also has a bad reputation of ending support for devices and platforms for some that aren’t directly tied to a server update. Client and Server software apps can ultimately vary and go hand in hand with server updates. Your suggestion to opt out and not renew, staying on an older Plex Server version can often have mixed results with the functionality of client apps.

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I know many have decided that they are not going to use the new Plex Experience. If you are an Apple user and have come to this conclusion then please leave the beta, there are limited Apple beta slots. This would give more opportunity for others to provide feedback. I am just hearing a lot of negative comments about the new version and it has me concerned about what we should expect.

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The bigger concern I have is when will they start charging us for users that we allow to use our Plex services. Don’t think that’s not comming.

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This is just another move in a long line of tone-deaf, anti-consumer decisions that prove Plex has lost sight of what its user base actually wants. They’re happy to waste resources pushing their garbage ad-supported streaming service, but can’t be bothered to maintain a beloved feature that actually made Plex useful for social viewing? It’s absolutely pathetic.

We’ve seen it before. They strip features, ignore feedback, and double down on their profit-first, users-last approach. And you can bet this won’t be the last time they take away something valuable in exchange for something nobody asked for.

Enough is enough. If Plex refuses to listen to their community, maybe it’s time to take our media libraries elsewhere. There are alternative solutions that actually respect their users—Plex clearly does not. I’m going to be migrating to Jellyfin and even if Syncplay may be a little janky, it works and it’s open source and actually DRIVEN by community! Unlike this pathetic company. You used to care about your users. Now you only care about profits. Totally and utterly OUT OF TOUCH - Blind - and stupid.

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Devil’s advocate is fine but I think we can all agree that they knew it would ruffle feathers. Not many companies are that blind or have their heads buried that deep in the sand. Thinking of it along these lines it now begs the question why not say what the new feature is to prevent the backlash or knee jerk reactions that are transpiring.

Again this isn’t rocket science we are talking about here.

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Please dont remove Watch Together Feature. I understand you want people to rent movies or purchase in the near future. At least give Plex Pass members the permission to initiate a Watch Together session if those user’s are current members of PMS where the content is being streamed from that specific shared PMS. This with let core users benefit from their membership and non Pass member’s will be more encouraged to purchase Plex Pass; Which is the exact reason why the membership is named Plex Pass.

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Joining the throng to say that Watch Together is literally like >80% of my viewing, since it’s the only decent way to watch shows with family members that don’t live in the same house.

Not looking forwards to setting up and retraining my parents on a new app like Jellyfin just to get a mostly-working version of this feature, but if this goes away I’m basically going to have to. Because mostly-working is still way better than going back to the nightmares of “3…2…1…go” and “oh wait what time are you at right now?”.

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I can say that as of yet I have had no major issues on my Fire Stick. Having the grid view for TV episodes on with the separated On Deck and Continue Wathching is more important to me than seeing the OTA channel numbers in Live TV & DVR (which is the only bug I’ve come across so far with the updated PMS).

But, you are correct. Freezing updates can certainly lead to unexpected issues, and eventually they’ll stop working and shouldn’t be done by people who aren’t comfortable living with their choices!

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First time on these forums just to say I am leaving Plex if they do not support Watch Together. it is the entire reason I use them. I had other users I was planning to bring on with the Plex Pass, but I am now holding off due to this announcement. Using the web app is NOT a solution for family members that are only used to using their smart TV’s. I can appreciate that development is very hard, but removing features is not the way to keep a user base happy.

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Yeah, I pointed this out in 2021. One of the Plex co-founders disputed everything I said about the sustainability of a lifetime subscription and the removal of features we want. Oh, and a couple of years after that they laid off 20% of their employees…

If you view my comment below, you can see elan’s response.

Here we are 4 years later and they’re still removing stuff we want.

I’m tired of being gaslit. We all know the truth.

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