Agreed. This is a horrible idea.
Time for all of us to look at Emby.
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Are you adding items to your watchlist? Or watching things from Plex’s own streaming service?
Playing from my home server on various clients. (Firestick / app / web / Samsung tv os ).
I’ve definitely disabled sync status on my account.
Dear @BigWheel … it’s good to have you with us in this thread… I was only reading since I were already suspecting such things will happen at some point if I allow syncing of my watch data. I was intrigued because of “new server, still all data” detail of it that was promoted at the time, but my suspicion was not over-the-top as I can see now.
Back to topic…
I am under the impression that such a feature can be implemented in a way that would not p*ss off server owners and would have more respect for privacy concerns.
Server owners are arguing that details from their server’s content is going to people with no access to all of its content, linking it to people’s habits - and that server owners cannot prevent this from happening.
These are being told: Hey, it’s not about your server because people don’t see HOW it has been watched… can you see why some people feel that their opinion is not getting not enough love from Plex?
Privacy-concerned people are complaining that they were not asked or were not well informed about the consequences of leaving certain settings as they were (or have them activated). Can you see why people feel misguided here? Let me please give you a simple example: cookies. If I disable cookies on most websites, I get a button saying “only necessary cookies” or “disable all”. Then there are some web sites where I have to wade through dozens if not hundreds of buttons for each partner individually - and I learn that these sites don’t like me to “not share my data with them and their partners”.
Do you really like me (us) to have the same experience with features that we do not like? It’s one thing that you offer a variety of features. I’m completely fine with that - even if would never think about using them.
I still live the dream that I really have a clear choice and that I am in control of who is sharing info from my server.
Can you understand that this is something that can be done simultaneously and that one is not the enemy of the other?
It would be great to sit together with a drink of any kind and discuss things like that with you guys and ladies. Of course, this is not possible, but I invite you guys to show some respect to server owners by giving them back more control about “sharing features” for content on their servers (even if a lawyer could argue that a user could set a movie as watched “in cinema”).
An I would also love a “privacy first” switch for users. If they activate that setting, Plex will respect this with any new feature and set settings accordingly automatically.
It is not a fool-proof concept, but it would bring back a lot of trust and would be relatively easy to implement.
Any thoughts from you on that @BigWheel ?
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What a giant mess.
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I would double check that you have in fact turned it off. The only other way items should get added to watch history is if you’ve added them to a watchlist and then gone into that watchlist to make them as watched, or watched something from Plex’s own streaming service.
Unless any of the items were watched before you turned off syncing watch state. If so then you need to remove the items one by one to actually get rid of the watch history.
This is an absolut privacy nightmare!!!
What the ■■■■ ist wrong with you plex?!
Honestly, how on earth can someone think, that we would like that stupid function!?
We demant privacy!
Plex really need to react fast in this mater and furthermore, the top future topic of plex must be privacy (at all time)!
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It is definitely disabled in my account settings and I do not watch nor mark as watched via any other means. And it is recent as in yesterday or this week.
I did the same. bought the lifetime pass last week. requested a refund last night. it’s really too bad. Plex is a good product if they would just stay out of their own way.
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wish you would/could give jellyfin a shot. Its great open source software with TONS of community support (the devs on their forums respond to issues for example)
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Looks like that right? My watch history remains completely blank when watching any local content or marking local content as watched. I can only get anything to appear on there by adding something to a watchlist and then going into the watchlist to mark it as watched. I would test Plex’s own streaming service but I disabled it and can’t be bothered turning it back on, but I assume anything watched on that would show up.
Pretty disgusted by the direction that Plex is going. Nobody is asking for Yet Another Social Network. instead of making these “features” nobody asked for, how about fixing the flaws with the mobile app?
Fortunately, moving to Emby is effortless, as it can run in parallel from the same media library as Plex.
What a shame - and the blatant disregard for user opinion on show in this thread, is pretty evident of the direction Plex will take going forward.
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I’ve now got JellyFin installed and imported a 32TB library into it painlessly.
The SwiftFin client on AppleTV is not quite as slick as Plex client - but it passed “the family test”, and they were able to navigate around well. The JellyFin webclient is also pretty good for all intents and purposes.
There are some rough edges for sure, but then Plex now has its own spikes - which makes evaluating alternatives necessary.
I don’t want to come across as bitter here, but in reality I really am by this whole episode.
I’ve been a promoter of Plex to all that would listen, trying to bring them into the fold. I’ve had 15 years investment into Plex as a platform. However what I feel is a blatant breach of trust has alienated a previously loyal and paying customer.
That NPS metric is about to take a major dive.
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As this thread is now nearly 400 posts deep and we’ve seen a couple people really excited about this (great for them!) but an overwhelming majority upset that this change was implemented in this way, borderline snuck in through “well we announced it technically” (buried in multiple page content update notices), and overwhelmingly derided by the community both here and on Reddit, my question is will Plex honor partial refunds of lifetime passes?
This isn’t the product I signed up for. I didn’t pay to have to constantly monitor my privacy settings and read dozens of pages of weekly release documentation to know whether or not you’re going to breach my privacy (which I’d only know if I had a borderline law degree). I paid to have a web interface to easily watch my media and support Plex. One of those no longer serves my purpose as all this time has been wasted so the ease is gone, and the other of which I no longer wish I’d done (support a company that’s clearly moving towards mass selling of watch data).
I should have known Lifetime + SaaS product was a terrible idea, but I had trust for some reason.
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You’re not wrong. It’s rough around the edges still but as a Apple user (who’s move into to infuse anyways) and an”power user” who likes control, Plex at this point (for me) offers nothing but unapologetic data mining at this point.
They refuse. I have tried.
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It boggles the mind how anyone at Plex thought this was remotely a good idea. Just mind blowingly stupid.
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And another article…Self-hosted media app starts narcing on its own users' anime and X-rated habits with an opt-out service, and it's going terribly | PC Gamer
Plex is beeing forced to respond… Good.
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Depends on how long ago you got the lifetime pass.
After holding a monthly Plex Pass for 10 years and hosting 2 servers, I just started looking at alternatives. These new features are repulsive.
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