There are an endless number of idiot business-major executives who only know “growth” and “vision” and anything other than recognizing they already have a good product.
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“Streaming media software maker Plex announced today it has raised a $50 million growth equity round from existing investor Intercap ahead of its planned business expansion into rentals, purchases and subscription content”. https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/14/plex-raises-50m-growth-round-to-fuel-ad-supported-streaming-expansions/
““Really good discovery has to have a social component, and we believe it needs to be integrated directly into the streaming experience to be useful,” noted Keith Valory, Plex CEO,” Plex becomes a social network with public debut of 'Discover Together' | TechCrunch
Pasted without comment.
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Okay, Keith, so maybe let users manually recommend a title and say why??? Do you have any idea how little “I watched this” means anything??
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Has there been any official statement(s) from Plex on this yet?
I’m not Keith but You can add comments to watched activities if you choose. and do star ratings on things. Actual user reviews like one from the professional credits on detail pages is something that is planned afaik
I peruse the activity feed regularly to see what my friends are watching and just click on it to see what something I never heard of is regardless of how my friends may have felt about it. most stuff I don’t care about for sure and I have muted friends who let their kids watch Peppa Pig 30 times a day, but I’ve found some gems. Like the new Planet Earth III which I did not know was a thing.
more in linked above about an hour ago.
but here is is again. Discover Together: Public Release - #3 by PlexInfo
So? It should still be manual anyway. If I see a number 1 badge that means “your friend has recommended a title” I would look at it but if i see a 1 that means "your friend watched something I wouldn’t.
Literally just ask people about this ■■■■. It’s not that hard.
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I just wanted to remind people again that Jellyfin exists. If we are going to enlighten Plex that their behavior is unacceptable we need to show it by making their revenue and user numbers drop. This is the only way a company will course correct.
That being said the dye has been cast for me. I’m not coming back and will be turning Plex off within a month.
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I wanted to chime in and state that I was never shown any popups, screens or anything that would give me a choice to share my data with others. Sharing was set to Friends and not private by default.
I actually wouldn’t mind these features, but the fact it was done under the radar and without my consent, I believe they need to be reverted and the feature killed. Its honestly unacceptable.
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Very disappointing that this is what the default was. Social media should not automatically and unilaterally be adding people as friends. Except Tom, I guess.
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The fact that there are multiple Plex and Plex-adjacent people in here trying to twist every complaint into technicalities is so disappointing. Arguing that Plex doesn’t technically collect information about what is watched on my server while simultaneously acknowledging that Plex sent emails out with information about people watching things that they watched on my server completely contradicts that.
The sync event does not let us know whether you performed the action on a Plex Media Server library item, a Discover page, or through a Movies & Shows streaming title. Activity from any of those would look identical. So, there is no way to know whether something being “watched” occurred because you went and saw it at the theater and then marked it on the Discover page when you got home, you watched through a personal Plex Media Server library, or anything else.
The email went out, it really doesn’t matter what stupid technicalities Plex is claiming regarding actually knowing whether you played a thing or just marked it as played or what. It’s activity that occurred and it’s BS.
Also I can’t be the only person here who thought syncing my watch status was required to have enabled to have my progress carry between devices and not this privacy nightmare Plex server upload nonsense, yeah? It’s definitely worded to make you think you need it for basic functionality. The entire way this app presents settings and privacy options need to be reevaluated. Right now it’s incredibly convoluted and disingenuous.
And it’s doubly depressing that, again, Plex Employees are just in here doubling down on it. This is not going to get better, it’s going to get worse.
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I think I may have misunderstood what you were saying but one can manually hit the share button on a movie or show details page, send to you, some or all their friend and say "this movie is great or whatever. Message notifications like that are separate from just general activity like watching.
It was in beta for whoever wanted to try it since July of last year
but this is off topic for this thread so
You forced out an updated email to people who did not opt-in specifically to have their settings broadcast to all of their friends and here you even openly acknowledge that you did not have this split until recently, meaning you would (as a user) have to go back and unfriend each person that was friended by default; yet you’d have to do this without the knowledge that this change was even happening so you wouldn’t know to go back and do this as many people have attested to in this thread.
That is a series of middle fingers to the privacy of users, you’re massively overstating something as a minor change which was a major one and requires user interaction and intimate knowledge of changes at multiple points in the process. You’re then downplaying that as if it’s so obvious to everyone and that everyone who uses a service reads literal pages of release documentation for a feature that is truly an opt-out, not an opt-in, as you try to play it off as.
That is a long series of terrible user interactions; but what does Plex care they already got my Lifetime Plex Pass money at retail price, right?
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I honestly cannot believe they did this. Plex team, you knowingly turned on a feature to share MY private watch history with people who I happened to allow access to my server? This was a horrific error in judgement, and so based on the past few years of “updates”, must be financially motivated.
I hope a few admins here are Privacy lawyers and can file a class action lawsuit. For some us, it’s not so bad. For others, it could be deeply embarrassing. What happens if you’ve only invited a friend to a subset of your library, but you watch something in a private section you haven’t shared with anyone. Are you telling me that will come up in their email and this is ok?!
Plex, reverse this immediately and never do something this stupid and immoral again.
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Yeah, you really should not have done that. You should remove those friends immediately. It would be a great first step that isn’t just another forum post. In fact, it would almost solve everything. Bring it up at your next meeting for me (I mean this sincerely) 
While “friend” may have been used in the past to refer to users which you share your library with, the capital-f Friend which refers to the relationship between Plex’s new social profiles certainly seems a new concept.
Nothing in this modal tells me that this user was going to be added as a Friend, let alone receive a copy of my watch history. This relation should not have been migrated 1:1 to my Friends, certainly not without my approval, certainly not without being informed of what being Friends entails.
@fog673 summarized it well.
There hasn’t been a response to my post, or actually @fog673’s post either. More meaningful assessment and action would go a long way, especially for users that don’t read the forums (most of them).
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I will no longer recommend Plex and will be working on migrating to an alternative platform unless a clear statement of apology and focus on user privacy is demonstrated.
Insane for a self hosting software to be pulling this. Project managers should lose their jobs for such poor decision making.
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The people who enacted this change must really have a special kind of brain damage to think this was a good idea.
It really shows that the people working at Plex are completely out of touch, this is not gonna get better until they start firing people
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I mean that this feature would be more valuable if it was just for manual recommendations rather than a feed of what my friends watched.
And I received no question. Beta != question.
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Turn this off!
Or better, make it opt in and set the control in the server.
Did not ask for this, and do not want this.
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The decisions of this company are utterly baffling. I’m tired of putting up with it. Local network usage when offline has been flaky at best, god forbid I need to log back in while my internet is out. My friend who got the most utilization from my server stopped being able to use his phone to access my content. Have the downloads for offline usage ever been fixed? Now I have to worry about what data you’re collecting not only from me, but from my friends and family that trusted me enough to use the service.
No more. I’ve already set up an alternative, actually self hosted service and as soon as my friends and family are moved over, I’m deleting my Plex docker. I guess as a lifetime Plex pass user, the joke is still on me since you already got my money. I urge the company to drop the pursuit of useless, invasive new features and just fix your core foundation before you bring the house down.
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I might have been aware of the ramifications of this, had I signed up for the beta. I did not sign up for the beta, because this sounded like something I would utterly hate.
And I was right.
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