I paid $100 to play Forza Horizon on my own device too - should that have been free?
This is a profoundly absurd statement.
That no other solution exists that is as easy and secure as Plex? That’s not just absurd, but profoundly absurd? What other solution is there that is?
Your entire argument seems to be that software should be free if it’s on your own device, which is a profoundly absurd statement. The only paid software should be on hardware you don’t own?
It’d fit the privilege of using someone else’s software.
Nah. How would you get Uncle Bob to use tailscale on his PS5 to watch Jellyfin, for example?
This mindset is bizarre.
“Everyone should get out now because at some stage in the future Plex might get greedy and ruin it all and charge us through the nose. Move to Jellyfin! They’ll definitely never ever do anything like Plex.”
I think you know where this is heading…
What exactly is being paid for here then?
Software support and the company existing, mainly, which I dunno about you but I’m ok with.
Bob your uncle will absolutely not use Tailscale to stream from Jellyfin, so Bob your uncle will no longer have access to OPs library.
You have a plex pass though, so nothing changed for you - you just got all angry because you didn’t read the email properly.
Your users are going to be much worse off now than they were, and you will absolutely lose a bunch of them who don’t want to (or can’t) have to connect to a VPN every time they want to stream from your library.
It’s also fucking wild to me that people are defending a monetization model that is on self hosted hardware.
It’s wild to me that people who claim to be tech savvy don’t understand that Plex Server, the software, is what makes Plex what it is and as popular as it is. No other solution exists that is as easy as Plex and as secure as Plex. Jellyfin, Emby, Kodi, etc are nowhere near as simple to use and don’t have the breadth of app support that Plex does. Plex is basically on every device anyone owns. They sign in and they can stream from everyones libraries. No VPNs needed, no other hoops.
I paid like $100 for a lifetime Plex Pass like 10 years ago. The 2 dozen friends and family that share my server don’t pay a cent and this changes nothing.
Wait so you’ve got a lifetime plex pass already? Then literally nothing changes for you or anyone that is streaming from your server.
It’s not though. The idea of self hosting isn’t to not have any software costs associated with it. Domain names aren’t free. VPNs (that you use to aquire content) aren’t free. Cloud backups aren’t free. Would you prefer everything was free? Absolutely. Do you sometimes have to pay to get the best software for the job? Absolutely, and Plex is that software.
Same here! That makes your argument even crazier to me! Someone demanding that your software should be free and should never be changed to be paid even if it means the company goes under is bananas.
The business model of having the people that use their main product that requires the most development and time and resources, Plex Server, pay either a cheap one off fee (that regularly goes on sale for half price) or a monthly subscription fee in order to use it, is “exceptionally poor”? How so? Is it just that it was free? This business model has been around for eternity. Get people in the door and hooked by offering it for free, then start charging for it. It’s one of the actual best business models around, not “exceptionally poor” lol. You’re looking at it from the “I want it to be free forever” point of view, not the “We need it to be a viable business with revenue to be able to sustain it” point of view.
That will never happen, because people will always be making free software to put out there for people to try and to use - and many of them will then transition to PAID because it’s not sustainable otherwise. For software to thrive you often have to have full time developers working on it, and full time developers need to be paid.
I paid ~$100 ~10 years ago for Plex Pass. It paid for itself instantly as I was simply supporting the developers of the software. As a software developer I have no problem doing that. I wasn’t forced to buy it, but I did.
I’m not quite sure where you got this $250 figure from though? What is that, the monthly remote pass x 12? Also most people running a plex server get far more than 20 movies a year lol. Pretty sure I got 20 movies last night.