Absolutely baffeling decision by an absolutely baffeling team. They’re not scared enough of Jellyfin but they should be when it takes all 5 of the remaining Plex users who haven’t been pushed out by these bogus and regressive updates.
10 Likes
If I wasn’t a Lifetime member I’d be canceling over this. What an awful change.
Watch Together is huge for staying in touch with friends who have moved away because we can watch things together easier and chat about them at the same time.
9 Likes
If I’m not mistaken, in the apple ecosystem, one can choose to manually update apps. Unless they took that away
2 Likes
What the hell. When was the last time we had 1 new feature or bugfix? Now they are taking away one of the only things that works?! Come on plex STOP selling us out. Fix some bugs and stop taking features away.
4 Likes
You can with apple yes. while I have it on my phone, I mostly watch on my TV. You cannot typically disable apps from updating without a lot of effort on TV’s, Rokus, Firesticks, etc…
2 Likes
Definitely still follow the solutions offered to make your voice heard! I still emailed billing to see about a refund for this.
3 Likes
I’ve been a subscriber since 2016 and there when Plex emerged taking over XBMC.
This is a huge insult to a bad design decision to remove very well used features from it’s user base. I know most of us will be looking for an alternative now, just like Plex took over XBMC, Plex needs to know it’s not immortal and something will fill this gap left.
Y’all did wrong here.
7 Likes
Disabling updating on Fire Sticks is a single setting.
Settings > Applications > App Store >
Turn off “Automatic Updates”
Also you can side-load older Plex client versions relatively easy.
In Android TV this is under the Google Play Store.
Once you open it, go to the user icon in the upper-right and choose Settings > Auto-Update Apps. You can turn it off there.
4 Likes
Let me be just another voice in the endless stream of people who think that this is a terrible decision.
Just because you didn’t realize that Watch Together was a good idea until a global pandemic trapped the world, that doesn’t mean it’s not still a good idea now.
When my now-wife and I were dealing with periods of long distance in our relationship, I would have loved it if a feature like Watch Together existed. I remember trying to sync up shows with countdowns and having to re-sync-up after any interruptions, and it was not a good experience.
Now, Watch Together exists. You already did the hard work of figuring out the right logic for how to keep things in sync, and you already have the backend implementation in the server. Don’t throw away that effort by cutting the feature entirely and dropping it on the floor.
If it’s not ready to ship by the time you want to release this new experience, fine I guess (though I question if it’s a good idea to release a new experience which is worse than what it’s trying to replace; that’s usually a recipe for angry customers in my experience), but commit to updating the new experience to include Watch Together when it’s done.
Don’t give us a non-committal “don’t preclude the idea of it coming back in some form or another in the future.” That’s insulting, and not helpful for anyone.
11 Likes
I only learned about this because one of my Remote Users got an email that it was going away!
We watch shows together multiple times a week. Sometimes I’ll even have two sessions going in the same house so I can get up to work on something in another room and not have to pause for everyone.
It’s a shame that this is being abandoned.
4 Likes
Do not remove the Watch Together, the reasons I bought Plex Pass was to improve the experience for me and my family/friends while support you as a company, and one of the main reasons Plex attracted me was because of Watch Together. #savewatchtogether
5 Likes
Thank you! Yes I know it’s possible, but communicating this to all the people on my server, without knowing their device type is my point. This is easy for me to follow, but I have a lot of users who struggle with simple commands 
Also, if they replace their device, (or are new to my server) they are SOL.
2 Likes
Plex has got progressively worse since I bought my Pass in 2019. The bottom just dropped out with this, and I’ll be looking into alternatives. Absolute scumbag move. Enjoy my money, thieves.
9 Likes
Dealbreaker. This is an absolutely unacceptable rollback of a critical feature. I use this all the time to watch with my friend who lives across the country. It is a vital feature for me and I’m a lifetime pass holder. Adding this into the new experience should be at the top of the stack rank (and frankly already in flight) with how much people use it. I love Plex but will have to abandon it for another provider if you don’t sort this out.
6 Likes
Please don’t remove Watch Together. I’ve used it countless times. It’s great!
5 Likes
It’s 2025 and not a single streaming service has this feature, let that sink in.
5 Likes
Same. Without that feature, I’m moving to a different software. Let us know how you make out with the refund. I’d certainly take a refund if I could get it. Watch together was the only reason I went with plex and bought the lifetime pass.
4 Likes
What a completely braindead decision – and it gets rid of one of the biggest reasons to even use Plex, much less subscribe. Do they hate money now? Is that it? Make it a paid feature, I don’t mind, I have a lifetime subscription. But I bought that because of Watch Together, and I no longer have any use for Plex once Watch Together is gone.
4 Likes
I still slightly preferred Plex over Jellyfin but with Watch Together going away Plex is now objectively inferior.
Should this change actually go through then I have zero reason to keep using Plex.
Kinda sad after buying the lifetime Plex Pass.
PSA: Consider deleting your account for privacy reasons if you permanently move to a different solution!
9 Likes
Very disappointed in this. Stupid decision.
4 Likes
