PLEX Price Increases, The Rise of Jellyfin and Now What?
After more than a decade of keeping its Lifetime Plex Pass at $119.99, Plex has officially announced a significant price increase—raising the cost to $249.99 starting April 29, 2025. This announcement, delivered through a press release on March 19, also outlined several additional changes to Plex’s pricing structure and feature availability. While price increases are common in the subscription space, this is Plex’s first major change of its kind in over ten years. It affects not just future subscribers, but the entire conversation around personal media platforms and the value Plex provides in 2025. As someone who has tested and covered Plex across various NAS platforms over the years, I think it’s important to break this all down clearly—and fairly.
Note – at the time of writing, April 5th, the old prices from Plex Pass are still available and a Lifetime Plex Pass purchased now will be no different than one purchased after April 29th 2025)
The TL;DR – Plex Just Raised Prices and Paywalled Remote Streaming
Plex is doubling the price of its Lifetime Pass from $119.99 to $249.99 starting April 29, 2025—its first increase in over a decade. At the same time, remote streaming will no longer be free, now requiring either a Plex Pass or a new $1.99/month Remote Watch Pass. While Plex has removed mobile app unlock fees and teased new features like a Common Sense Media integration, users are frustrated that core features are being moved behind paywalls. Open-source alternatives like Jellyfin are gaining traction, though they lack Plex’s polish and easy remote access. Emby sits awkwardly between the two, offering both paid and free tiers but without a clear value advantage. If you’re a regular Plex user, now is likely the last chance to grab the Lifetime Pass at its original price—after that, the equation changes.
Why is PLEX Increasing Prices and Changing their Software Services?
Plex has positioned this move as a necessary step toward long-term sustainability and innovation, citing rising infrastructure and development costs. Alongside the new Lifetime price, the monthly subscription will increase to $6.99 (up from $4.99), and the annual plan will rise to $69.99 (from $39.99). That’s a considerable leap across the board. If you’re currently on the fence about investing in a Lifetime Pass, the window is closing quickly. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—if Plex is part of your day-to-day setup, especially with multiple users or remote access needs, now is the most sensible time to act. Once the new pricing kicks in, the Lifetime tier may lose its appeal for newer users, especially when compared to other one-time license models in the tech space.
More controversial than the price hike, though, is the newly introduced limitation on remote streaming. As of late April, remote access will no longer be included in the free version of Plex. This means that if you want to stream media from your home server while away—say on a mobile device or at work—you’ll now need a Plex Pass or a new tier called Remote Watch Pass, which is priced at $1.99/month or $19.99/year. This shift marks a pretty significant change in Plex’s philosophy. Previously, you could set up a NAS, install Plex Media Server, and stream remotely with minimal friction. Now, that experience is essentially paywalled. While the company has clarified that users with an existing Plex Pass won’t be affected, new users and guests who rely on remote access will need to consider this new fee model.
In his own coverage of the news, Alex from the KTZ Systems YouTube channel offered a measured but critical response. He highlighted the underlying tension many feel: “You’re paying Plex to access your own files, on your own hardware, over your own network and internet connection.” It’s a fair point—and while I can understand Plex’s need for sustainable revenue, the optics of charging for what many considered a core, previously-free feature are less than ideal. In our recent joint podcast, Alex and I both agreed that if Lifetime Passes are no longer financially viable, Plex should have either phased them out or significantly increased the cost to signal their rarity. Instead, the $249.99 price tag sits in an odd middle ground—too high to feel like a deal, too low to feel truly premium.
(From official Plex Pages) IMPORTANT NOTE FOR CURRENT PLEX PASS HOLDERS:
For users who have an active Plex Pass subscription, remote playback will continue to be available to you without interruption from any Plex Media Server, after these changes go into effect. When running your own Plex Media Server as a subscriber, other users to whom you have granted access can also stream from the server (whether local or remote), without ANY additional charge—not even a mobile activation fee.
Could PLEX Have Approached Funding and Sustainability Better?
Rather than placing long-standing features behind a paywall, Plex had several other options for becoming more financially sustainable—many of which were discussed across the community in recent weeks:
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Introduce a “Plex 2.0” Premium Tier: Instead of retroactively limiting features, Plex could have rolled out a major version update with enhanced capabilities—such as native audiobook support, advanced download controls, or multi-user analytics—reserved for paying users, while leaving existing features intact for legacy users.
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Cap Lifetime Passes and Shift Focus to Recurring Tiers: Rather than awkwardly doubling the Lifetime price, Plex might have opted to discontinue Lifetime entirely and focus on expanding the value of annual/monthly subscriptions through regular feature rollouts or exclusive integrations, as seen in platforms like Roon or UnRAID.
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Use a “Freemium Scaling” Model: By allowing remote access for a limited number of external users or devices on the free tier (e.g., “first one’s free”), Plex could have maintained goodwill while encouraging heavier users to upgrade organically—similar to how many SaaS platforms incentivize scaling through added value, not restriction.
What Else is Changing in Plex?
To their credit, Plex has removed one of the more annoying barriers from its platform—the mobile app unlock fee. Previously, streaming via the Android or iOS app was limited to one minute unless you paid a small one-time fee or had a Plex Pass. With the rollout of their new mobile client experience, this limitation is going away. Local streaming—meaning within the same network—will now be completely free on mobile. This is undoubtedly a welcome change, especially for users who run everything locally and don’t rely on remote features. However, for those who previously enjoyed full functionality across networks without a subscription, this small improvement may not offset the new restrictions.
Plex also used the announcement to preview some upcoming features for Plex Pass subscribers, including an integration with Common Sense Media aimed at improving parental control tools, a new server management app (separate from Plex Dash), and a long-requested open API for metadata agents and custom integrations. While these additions have genuine value, their timing—bundled with a price increase and feature restrictions—makes it harder for users to assess whether Plex is giving more or simply charging more. Alex pointed out in our podcast that innovation, not restriction, should drive paid feature rollouts. It’s a sentiment I tend to agree with: adding new tools rather than paywalling old ones is the path that generates goodwill and long-term user engagement.
Is Now the time to Ditch PLEX, and Opt for Jellyfin or Emby Media Server?
Naturally, this news has reignited interest in Jellyfin, the most well-known open-source alternative to Plex. Jellyfin remains free, with no subscriptions or data collection, and offers solid core media server functionality. However, as Alex and I discussed in our joint video, Jellyfin comes with its own set of trade-offs. While it nails the fundamentals—smooth playback, broad codec support, and responsive local streaming—it lacks polish in its client apps, and remote access typically requires self-configuration through a VPN or mesh network like Tailscale. For tech-savvy users, that’s a worthwhile trade. But for those who rely on Plex’s seamless, cross-platform access, Jellyfin may still feel like a step backward in convenience.
Emby, once considered a middle ground between Plex and Jellyfin, is rarely mentioned in this conversation anymore—and there are reasons for that. Emby straddles an awkward line between open-source philosophy and commercial aspirations. It still charges for features like hardware transcoding and has moved away from its open development roots. In our podcast, Alex shared his own frustrations with Emby’s shift to closed source shortly after he purchased a Lifetime license. Combined with a smaller user base, inconsistent app support, and limited visibility in NAS ecosystems, Emby struggles to be either the budget-friendly choice or the polished premium one. In short, it’s not that Emby is bad—it’s that it’s not compelling enough to compete meaningfully right now.
| Feature | Plex | Emby | Jellyfin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free with premium options (Plex Pass) | Free with premium options (Emby Premiere) | Completely free and open-source |
| User Interface | Highly polished and intuitive | Modern and user-friendly | User-friendly and customizable |
| Media Management | Excellent metadata handling and organization | Powerful and versatile | Robust and feature-rich |
| Remote Streaming | Highly efficient; seamless and reliable | Seamless and reliable | Smooth and reliable |
| Parental Controls | Available with Plex Pass | Available and customizable | Built-in and customizable |
| Cloud Syncing | Limited support | Available | Not supported |
| Hardware Transcoding | Available with Plex Pass | Available with Emby Premiere | Free and supported |
| Live TV / DVR | Available with Plex Pass | Available with Emby Premiere | Free and supported |
| Multiple Users | Supported | Supported | Supported |
| Offline Downloads | Available with Plex Pass | Available with Emby Premiere | Free and supported |
| Plugins/Add-ons | Wide range of plugins and add-ons | Extensive selection | Limited selection |
| Platform Support | Broad range of platforms | Wide range of platforms | Wide range of platforms |
| Community Support | Large and active community | Active community support | Growing community support |
Are We Seeing the End of PLEX on the Horizon?
One key issue here isn’t just the new pricing or paywalled features, but how Plex has communicated these changes. As we discussed in the podcast, the rollout feels rushed and reactive, missing an opportunity to reframe this as a strategic step forward—say, through a “Plex Plus” or “Plex Lite” tier with exclusive new tools, or by versioning changes the way other platforms (like UnRAID or even macOS) handle major updates. Instead, moving features behind a paywall post-launch risks alienating loyal users. Plex’s assertion that these changes won’t affect existing Plex Pass holders is reassuring, but it doesn’t help new users discovering Plex for the first time—and realizing that what used to be free is now a subscription service.
Ultimately, I don’t believe Plex is on the brink of collapse—as some dramatic headlines might suggest—but I do think this moment marks a turning point. If you’re a regular Plex user who streams remotely or shares content with others, the Lifetime Pass at $119.99 (until April 29) remains a solid investment. After that, the value calculus shifts dramatically. For new users, the free tier will still work well for local-only setups, and the Remote Watch Pass provides a budget-friendly option. But the days of a completely free, fully featured Plex experience are clearly behind us.
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Got tired of Plex incorrectly classifying files. Switched to Jellyfin and it just works.
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I only bit the bullet and paid for plex so my family could do offline downloads on their iPhones. Other than that Jellyfin was doing the job already
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I never saw the appeal of the lifetime licence so to date, Plex has only cost me £5 for the iOS app and everything works great. Will this continue to be the case or am I going to be forced to pay for it in future? Plex is good, but I’m not sure I’d pay for it. I’d wager that the overwhelming majority of their user base are pirates who simply won’t pay, unless it’s an incredibly reasonable price (which if VC is involved, it won’t be). Sad news.
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I’ve never needed a plex pass up until now for the lower price. I surely have no need for it at a higher price. If they are removing features and making them paid, I’ll just find a different solution. I’m not sure exactly what remote playback feature is being removed to know if it will affect me or not.
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So for those considering Plex Pass Lifetime, we should get it now before price doubles to $250?
And does that give you everything or you pay extra for remote streaming etc. as it seems they are stripping things out ???
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I’ve been using Jellyfin for some time and just switched over to PLEX Premium, had no problems installing Jellyfin on my NAS but when it came to updating it, it wiped all my content and had to rebuild my libraries which pi$$ed me off. Connecting remotely is also a pain, like you said it’s not polished off enough. I don’t know much about Linux CMD line scripting. At the moment PLEX has everything I need to play my content from my NAS and stream it from anywhere, this includes my music and photos
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EMBY. Emby is better than jellyfin.
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Already ditched Plex and canceled my monthly subscription. Emby is up and running after one evening of installing and configurations.
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I use Jellyfin and infuse as my player on all my devices, everything plays fine. Not sure what’s the big deal with Plex.
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Getting an Alert on your phone saying Emby is not safe ???????????????? How old is this video?! No really how much did Plex pay you?!
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Jellyfin is scarce?! It’s on Android, Google Play Store, iPhone, iPad, Laptops, Firesticks, Roku, Nvidia Shield, Windows, Linux, OS X, Synology, Qnap, Docker, etc.. You call that scarce???
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Open port 8096 and share Jellyfin all over the world. No Rocket science needed nor is Tailscale needed. (It’s not that serious to open port 8096) Love me some Jellyfin, I watch my movies, TV-Shows, Home Videos, view family pictures, listen to my Music, and my Audiobooks with ease. Don’t need the Plex cloud or it’s so-called Bells and Whistles.
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The move from Plex to keep the lifetime pass is genius. I’ve literally just fell into their trap this week, by upgrading to the current price lifetime pass, as I literally panicked.
Once I bought it, I regretted it immediately as I’ve been running Jellyfin in parallel and I think I actually prefer Jellyfin to Plex! It was just sheer panic that led me to this spot. Well played Plex, and boy was I played!
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I just started using Plex and it just works. Jellyfin does not run on my Nas for some reason
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I’m sure others have pointed this out already, but Netflix used to be $6-7/month. Why in hell would anyone pay that much for access to their own media, that they’ve 1) paid for, 2) had to rip and convert, and 3) set up on a home server? To me, that is outrageous. The whole point of Netflix (and all streaming) was that you had access to tons of media that changed periodically, and you didn’t have to buy the media, AND it was ad-free.
That last thing is probably most important, because the next thing Plex will change is requiring additional payment in order for you to view your own media ad-free. Maybe not now, but 5 years from now.
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The lifetime pass is just a tool they use to shore up sales for a quarter. Looks like they’re coming up short? Have a sale on the lifetime pass for a quick infusion of cash. It’s a losing strategy over the long run.
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Lifetime passes depend on the provider not going bust and I’m not sure I’d take that risk
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Would buy the lifetime pass if it was 10€, but clearly not at price point 249€
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So KODI wasn’t in the mix at all. I’m sad.
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Just generally talking about software that offer lifetime pass & monthly subscription, I have a few apps on iPhone that I bought lifetime pass for which are no longer supported but still work, also was thinking about switching to android but the apps no longer offer lifetime pass and are only available on subscription. I think if there is no option for lifetime pass then you should be given it after 2 years of subscribing
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So I’ve been testing other options and… What about Emby? What’s the good/bad, because to me it feels better than jellyfin… Thoughts?
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It is SONOS level implosion. I just update to the latest iOS version and I can no longer access my, yes, my media libraries. Yes, I’ve tried plexamp and it’s just as clueless as the Plex App. Web access, no issues. I was trying to wean us off SONOS and spent sometime developing an iTunes playlist import utility just to be greeted with an empty library list and a dysfunctional replacement app (plexamp).
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Jellyfin will eventually go the plex route once it’s polished and has a larger user base. Guarantee it. Nothing good that is free, stays free.
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I have a lifetime plex pass and share it with friends and family nothing else is as easy for me to share. For me to use jellyfin or Emby they would need to have a better sysem for that.
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I understand that prices go up, but who’s problem is it that they did not increase the price every year? Now they want to make up for it by slapping a 150% increase on their users. Fortunately none of us have to pay it, because Plex is not holding a gun to anyone’s head. This increase is going to scare off a lot of people and that is a fact! Jellyfin works for me and I cannot imagine switching at this stage.
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Been using Jellyfin for at least 5 years now, before that Kodi. Never considered Plex, ever. I wanted full control over my media. Setting up Jellyfin properly for external use is a bit challenging for the networking illiterate like myself, but I was finally able to do it and it’s never been better. Jellyfin for president!!!
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I don’t share media outside of my home network so I have no need for Plex. I find the Emby free product to be more polished than Jellyfin, and the missing premium features (hardware transcoding & mobile device apps) are not relevant to me. If Emby moves basic features behind a subscription, then I’ll move over to Jellyfin for sure.
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~$249,…??? Plex, you’ve played yourself. I paid something like ~$70 many moons ago. BTW, Plex can add features but they still have a tendency to break the basic functionality.
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their pricing doesn’t make sense
$6.99 per month for accessing your own content ?
netflix charges $7.99 for accessing commercial content
why would you continue to keep your own server running when you can hop onto netflix for less than the electricity/HDD costs
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Switched to Jellyfin when plex announced the price hike.
I’ve also been working on a plex web inspired theme for Jellyfin’s WebUI (basically just a scyfin/ultrachromic fork)
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Thank you. I was not aware of plex changing their policies. I have been a free plex user for a couple of years and self-host all my stuff. I just purchased a lifetime pass at $159CDN before the price increases.
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emby is better then plex. i moved from plex to emby years ago
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Started with Plex ended up with Emby. I’d love to see more Emby content FYI. Jellyfin just isn’t there yet. I could put up with it but the lack of client apps is a deal breaker.
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Hey! I do NOT wear an eye-patch. The only thing I have in my Plex are things I have the disc for – one I ether purchased myself, or that I inherited from friends who have shuffled off their mortal coils. I have an eye-patch-wearing Canadian friend, whose Plex server has things I don’t 🙂
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Netflix is cheaper, and you don’t need to provide your own media.
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Superb
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Plex is worth $249 if sold with the 2025 shield.
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Having recently setup a media server, I’ve tried Emby (ok but no go, too many restrictions) and Jellyfin which does everything i need and works absolutely fine behind my reverse proxy and domain/sub. I have seen plex in the past and have no interest in giving it a go. So as a relatively new entrant to this sector, they’ve done nothing to attract me and lost out for good.
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Don’t give them the idea of going 100% SAAS
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Removed plex from my nas after 5 years I agree they should be giving us at least 2 free remote access.
Anyways plex has not been that good this past years anyways.
Jellifin better cleaner and free.
However subtitles a bit broken on android tv but that’s all.
Remote access with dns seems better
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As of now, a lifetime Plex pass is $119.99, so what’s this about $249?
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Unfortunately Jellyfin is off the menu for me for the time being at least, due to it not yet having compatibility with my MyCloudEXUltra 2. I have a lifetime Plex licence but would always like to have an alternative option, so hearing that Emby isn’t that alternative is disappointing.
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Or, you know, use something else. Plex is hardly the only solution.
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A lot of the user base with “questionable” media will only pay so much over “free”. I think if they push things too far restrictions will be lifted with “other methods”. The 4.99/mo option is likely valid but I don’t’ see 249 working with this type of app.
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Every screen i have has a full PC attatched to it, and when i tried to use plex it seemed like way more headache to set up than its worth. My file folders are organized enough that playing straight from the file explorer has always been the easiest option.
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You say no one should set up port forwarding… however, that is the only way to get plex remote streaming to work without a relay being involved.
I recently switched ISP and am now behind a CGNAT, and that effectively broke Plex’s remote streaming for my friends.
I can see no reason why plex couldn’t use their own overlay networking similar to how tailscale works to avoid CGNAT issues and even avoid users having the mess about with port forwarding. Having their cloud authentication layer puts them in a far better position to do that.
I’ve personally switched to a jellyfin server with a tailscale tunnel to a VPS which has a reverse proxy on it. My main concern is plex having access to media metadata, which they claim to not collect however that can change at any time, and who knows what happens if / when the corporate structure of plex changes.
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I agree with your hypothesis about winning people away from lifetime while not spilling blood in the water.
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For my own use, I’m a long term Plex Pass user but since a year or so, I switched to Emby lifetime too for videos (I still like Plexamp philosophy).
Emby just “works”, it is fast (inc transcoding), interface is great, it fully local compared to Plex. I don’t bother too much about closed source if it does only what I need it for.
Jellyfin is not working outside since the beginning on Android app (there is a thread in their forum), unfortunately.
But I still keep a JF platform for testing though… ????
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luckily all my devices can play media directly without fancy UI or conversions
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I just checked my emails, I paid $29.99 back in 2012 for my lifetime Plex Pass….happy Days, I also recently paid for a lifetime pass for Emby, I actually like Emby better, but still use Plex…
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Switched back to Jellyfin when Plex started threatening price hikes. Now Jellyfin gets my $5 per month.
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Been on jelly fin for ages, I highly rate it
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I have both plex and jellyfin on my system. Both are trash and full of bugs, hence why I need both. Bugs like not even showing a movie or show in the library despite the files being there.
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VC…as soon as you see the two letters, you know that the company that you thought that you knew, is gone.
It reminds me of a couple of companies that I worked with/at, where, immediately after I heard the two magic words:
“Shareholder Value”
R&D was soon to suffer
Innovation became secondary
The company would soon be toast
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I used Plex for a few years, occasionally, a few years ago. I ditched it for a few reasons – increasing nagware, increasing features adding unwanted UI clutter and complexity, the maturation of Jellyfin into a viable free alternative. Over the last couple of years I’ve been using jellyfin it’s continued to mature, and – hallelujah – a Jellyfin client app became available on LG’s WebOS store, meaning native Jellyfin support on my 2019 LG C9, so I get Atmos support. Yay!
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Jellyfin + TV Headend on Debian Linux for the media, VPN server on pfSense CE for remote access. Works like a charm. Total cost $0.00. I have no complaints about the remote players.
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Plex *still hasn’t fixed the out-of-the-box controller support in Plex HTPC* for wireless Xbox controllers via USB dongle. It’s been THREE YEARS. ❌❌❌ (It worked fine back when it was “Plex Media Player”, before the name change.)
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It’s bizarre to me that anyone questions the value of a lifetime Plex Pass. I’ve been using Plex since it was just a Mac port of XBMC. I bought the pass in February 2016, if I’d paid the new price back then that works out to a whopping $2.27/month. I’m sure they’d made some change that “forced” me into it, probably had something to do with remote sharing, but I didn’t begrudge them for it. They were never Free Software, they’d clearly always intended to make money, and the $4.99 I’d paid for the iPhone app wasn’t going to cut it.
If I were to gripe about anything, it’s how they blur the lines between content I have / share and content they offer. Used to be I could just share with anyone without having to explain more than “Make an account, get the app on your smart device, accept my sharing invitation.” Now they need tutorials on how to hide all the crap. And every so often a “major update” to the apps makes them do it all over again.
Well, and that the VC pied piper is going to demand to get paid, eventually.
I’ve glanced at the others.
Jellyfin has always been a non-starter ’cause they don’t cover enough device platforms.
Emby has the platform coverage, but… their pricing model for “Premier” features turns me off. My household uses three Plex accounts, 31 family/friends outside our household have streamed something thing month. How many monthly “Premier” device licenses do I need? I’ve no damned idea. Their tiering scheme and “Contact Us for Even More” smells like their bread-and-butter is selling to people who engage in commercial piracy, which ain’t me. I’m an altruistic pirate.
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I am still unable to use Jellyfin as a replacement for Plex. But I’m running both in case my Internet Access goes out (login issues). Plex is a paid solution but, to me, it’s fairly priced considering all the hours I have used the software. Moreover, as it has become so rare in our day and age, they offer a lifetime licence. That should be encouraged rather than bashed.
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Sorry, but are you saying that my “Mum” that is streaming my Plex Server at her house, is now going to have to pay a monthly fee to access my server?
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we are in a world of boiling Frog Effect
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I wonder how many users they’ll lose for doubling the price of lifetime pass and snatching away remote streaming, versus maybe reducing the pricing on lifetime pass in order to convert people who have never given money to Plex into users and paying customers
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This lifetime plexpass holder switched about over a month ago without hesitation. Happily leveraging my Intel A380 for AV1 transcoding in Jellyfin now. Thankfully my remote users (reverse proxy) only use SwiftFin or the FireTV apps and I’ve heard no complaints.
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My ISP doesn’t allow a proper bridge mode so I can’t port forward, so to provide access to my library I need the relay. Apart from that, at home, I run Plex and Jellyfin, but my users will not use Jellyfin because they hate the user experience and we’ve noticed it has some issues streaming over WiFi, even when the sign al is strong, when switching to Plex it will just play.
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so do i understand it correctly, if i have lifetime plex pass and i’m hosting my server and want to give access to it to family across the world without plex pass subscription, they still will be able to watch it without any fuss?
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so do i understand it correctly, if i have lifetime plex pass and i’m hosting my server and want to give access to it to family across the world without plex pass subscription, they still will be able to watch it without any fuss?
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Can someone help me or maybe re assure me? I really want to set up my own media Nas, but I don’t really know what I’m doing and get different messages from different channels, you could say I’m a tin hatter I’m worried about doing dodgy illegal things and security risks, is plex the simpler to work or is jellyfin really for experts ?
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Can someone help me or maybe re assure me? I really want to set up my own media Nas, but I don’t really know what I’m doing and get different messages from different channels, you could say I’m a tin hatter I’m worried about doing dodgy illegal things and security risks, is plex the simpler to work or is jellyfin really for experts ?
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No one has an Apple TV client with the features I want. Jellyfin basically non-existent. Emby works, but is weird with Dolby Vision content. Infuse doesn’t to extras or Live TV. ChannelsDVR doesn’t do extras, and has a crap UI, but a good virtual channel experience and a great player. Keeping a closer eye on all of it now that Plex is fully emshittified.
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25:28 I did. I’m on Jellyfin specifically for your first point. I didnt want to be reliant on ‘someone else’s’ server to access *my* data on my own network. Anything im self-hosting/serving, shouldnt *ever* need to reach out to some other company just to work properly for day-to-day use. I dont want my own server to be an IoT device.
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Don’t be so sure about your “lifetime” pass. Other companies have revoked ‘lifetime’ passes before. Its only “lifetime” for as long as *they* want it to be.
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Have a plex lifetime pass, jumped ship quite some time ago to Jellfin.
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according to the jellyfin website they have over $24,000 USD in donations sitting aside.. personally I think they need to offer some cash incentives for community voted feautre requests etc.
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For my use case Plex is still best.
Emby – their Apple TV app does not work well with HDR videos. (I know the workaround is to use Infuse, but that should not be necessary).
Jellyfin – no usable Apple TV app.
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I used Plex for a few years, but the price and just as good features (For my uses) of Jellyfin won me over. Sorry Plex… You’re going down the dark path and I’m not following.
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Plex has clients all over the place.. jellyfin doesn’t.. sure for the nerdiest its probably probably possible to sideload some stuff into most TVs these days.. but I’m really tired of being constant tech support.. getting some stick or other box, just adds to the tech support hell
until that changes, jellyfin is going to remain a niche thing
I was grandfathered into a Plex lifetime pass when they were introduced and I don’t even remember why.. probably donated something before then or something.
it also needs a lot of work still… on both server and client side
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I tried to migrate from Plex to Jellyfin few days ago and ended up giving up because of so many Jellyfin bugs and quirks despite some nice advantages:
– While metadata scrapers have way more options on Jellyfin they’re quirky af, i never managed to get a consistent match on episodes, seasons and even get API banned on some despite using the recommended settings, this never happened on Plex.
– The Jellyfin desktop/HTPC experience has a lot of catch up to do on Plex: no true HTPC client, MPV implementation is a real mystery: i have way worse performance on shaders usage with the Jellyfin media player client than Plex or even a standalone MPV
– The Jellyfin media player client & TV CSS is barely useable: not adapted to TV DPI, keyboard navigation is quite rough…
– Jellyfin library management is lacking in quite some ways: Impossible to manually merge series (you have to pray it works on library scans), manual matching doesn’t follow library metadata rules, seasons and episodes not detected at all (unknown season issue), impossible to completely remove all metadata from a title.
– Some features are lacking: no hardening for wan access (you need a swag to secure it), no easy sharing like plex obviously, no intro/credits detection…
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I agree with Alex 100%….if they are under pressure to find new revenue streams to fund their executive bonuses and pressure from their VC…..a lifetime pass is a terrible product. Its short term gain and very very long term pain.
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21:40 just never heard of reverse proxies?
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Last time I checked out jellyfin (probably less than a year ago) it’s just not mature. The clients are basically web wrappers and don’t work well with remotes or controllers. It also doesn’t have something like kometa. I have both installed in docker containers in case I ever need jellyfin, but that hasn’t been the case.
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As a Emby lifetime license holder I made the switch to Jellyfin well over a year ago. Emby 3.x was great with my Network TV Tuners & TVHeadend setup I had just for Emby. After 4.x it began becoming more buggy bc they made that feature a premium feature & even with a license for it, it still sucked. I tried Jellyfin when it first was forked from Emby 3.x & it was horrible but that was well over 3-4 years ago. Tried Jellyfin again after another crappy Emby 4.x update & basically everything just worked! As a hardcore XBMC user I always hated Plex bc they basically ripped off the client, I’m not sure if there was even a server component back then & they gave basically zero credit back to XBMC (at least that I saw).
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@25:50 – That is the key. If it is a “Just me at my house”, Jellyfin is perfectly fine. For me, it is remote, non-techie family members of all ages on all types of clients, some ‘80% there solution with weird usability or completely crappy apps (let alone how to remote to them in the first place) make Jellyfin a non-starter. Hard enough to get them up and running on Plex clients (that I can’t modify centrally for who the f knows reasons) where I have to tell them how to turn on Direct Play as it isn’t on by default (for who the f knows reasons).
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I understand why people are upset about this feature change and putting more things behind their paywall. But I also genuinely think that the lifetime Plex pass is a good value—for the people who need it. Now, that is based on the assumption that they will keep up their track record of putting Plex on new platforms that may come along, and keep updating all their apps and software to remain as functional as it is today, and adding new small features here and there. With the price of streaming (which is the alternative) going up, it is reasonable to hike the Plex Pass price too.
Certainly, some users are going to move to Jellyfin (that’s where I host my family movies), but others like me will stay with Plex because of the ease of use for friends and family, and wide app support. They can shovel into it all the streaming garbage they want, but as long as I or my viewers can toggle off those preferences I don’t get too upset.
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Main reason I’m still using Emby is really simple : apps. When you have a bunch of users with a lot of possibilities, Jellyfin is just a pending issue to come. No support for Apple TV, WebOS under v4, and more, lot of apps with weird names and features you can’t really figure it out. It’s very underwhelming for a lot of casual users. So yeah, I do also have philosophical issues with the Emby team but it works. For now, it’s the best of both worlds between Plex and Jellyfin. And the auto organize extension needs to get more recognition too. This thing is a winner by himself.
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I use emby. It has a tv app in Samsung appstore so no need to buy a firestick or android tvbox. I only use it on TV and phone.
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former jellyfin user use to use jellyfin till about year and half ago when i started streaming my content to my family’s house . i use to use a dedicated pc to make hotspot in my folks house with tail scale for them to use my jellyfin library. My only issue every month or 2 they would either crash or they would forget how to access the content i would either have to call them or go over there. Via now with plex pass they just need to boot the app up on their tv and it just works. Few other things i like with plex is intro skipp/ ending credit skip and plex seems to be more accurate on identifying content
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ive been on jellyfin the day plex said i am not allowed to remote in to my own files.
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Jellyfin does what I need and want with really no complaints. I can stream anything I want, might have had minor issues on it matching videos but since I started using the IMDB number all movies pull correct info and work great. For free im perfectly alright with whatever I am missing from plex. Never used it because the whole point of what I was trying to do was get away from netflix and disney+ lol for plex might as well just keep subs. It costs money for media, NAS, BR drives, and HDDs to feed the need.
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ironinically, what got me interested in jellyfin over plex in the first place is that I didnt share it with the outside world. I dont want that kind of integration built in and punching a hole in the firewall, it creates a target
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“unless you just want to open a port in your firewall and just live life to the max” lmao
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I doubt that many, if any, Plex users with a lifetime Plex Pass will “jump ship” to Jellyfin or Emby. There is no monetary reason to do so.
The people who use the free Plex services also have no incentive to switch. Free Plex or free JellyFin costs the same!
The Plex Pass subscribers with monthly or yearly subscriptions are the only people that might switch based on price.
If Plex wants to increase revenue they could sell a 3-5 year Plex Pass for the current $120 price and then change the Lifetime price to $250 or whatever.
The only reason for me to consider switching would be if JellyFin was an all around superior product.????
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Compare MS Encarta vs Wikipedia, which is maintained by volunteers. It can be done.
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I like a lot the Jellyfin server, but the apps for smart tvs especially android TV which I use is just god awful
It’s really only as good as a replacement for plex if you watch everything on the web on your laptop.
I really hope Jellyfin puts a lot more work into their clients to make it viable for people who want to grab a remote and watch on their TV
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I really appreciate your efforts! A bit off-topic, but I wanted to ask: I have a SafePal wallet with USDT, and I have the seed phrase. (behave today finger ski upon boy assault summer exhaust beauty stereo over). Could you explain how to move them to Binance?
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i hear too much about the “polish” version of jellyfin and how is not polished… whatever the hell, i’ll stand with jellyfin till the end, best program / app ever for nas.
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I have too many non technical users, Plex just works for remote users, unless jelly can do the same it will not compete, it is not in the same ballpark. I have one friend who just has his movies on portable Harddisks, plugs it in searches for a movie and plays it, he wont even listen to change (the old “Stop you are confusing me”), but he uses my plex. Older people and the younger gen, just want a button to click. SO my annoyance with plex is when they make the user apps more confusing, all my users want is here is TV shows and here is Movies button.
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I have ignored the $75 plex pass because I have not been happy about certain things with plex. I hate that if internet goes out while watching an online service, then switch to plex, I set it up to work locally, but it still doesn’t allow accessing my local plex server. Also the plex client sucks because it doesn’t support modern audio so I use kodi with plex plugin for HD audio. If plex would have fixed those issues I would have paid. Now they want $250 for less and not fixing issues? NO!
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I don’t understand all the talk about Jellyfin being hard to connect to server when you are outside local ip… its the easiest think in the world. ok, you will need to open a backdoor in your router… and possible get DDns address to hide your ip, but that’s it. i have several people connect to my Jellyfin server daily. Also the free gpu decoding… big plus in my book.
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I have been a long term Emby user and in my 10 plus years of usage I am 100% satisfied. I am a one time life member, however I do not use the transcoding service as I stream from Raspberry PI’s in each room. I also do not share with family outside of the house, so I cannot comment on that functionality. But for me it works seamlessly and I couldn’t be happier with it.
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Sadly jellyfin lack of apps and polish moved to Emby never look back years ago 0 problems and of course got the lifetime pass for transcoding
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i install the media player for jellyfin and the server. program. it’s telling me to connect to server no way of knowing how to do this. plex meanwhile i just log in to account. set up everything local and just watch. hate to say it but unless je;;yfin makes it esier to start up the media player and get into the video watching. it;s going to be plex all the way. i just had jellyfin install for just a few minutes and can’t get the media player to do anything but tell me to connect to host. uninstalling jellyfin don’t reccommend but for advance users only.
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Great discussion. I bought the plex pass several months ago to avoid this dilemma. That and Tailscale solves my problems. Thank you both
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I got Plex Lifetime at $80… Unless something in my lifetime pass changes against me, I won’t worry
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Until recently I thought remote play was a paid feature. I think the remote play being paid is fair play. Same for download to local device as well. They need to fix downloads and they just made it worst as I can’t set a whole season to download to an extent that it’s frustrating with recent update. Also I do not want content that is not mine showed down my throat. I had my Plex lifetime for over a decade
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Plex can f**k right off, and take Synology with them. People should go back to open source software and self-built servers. I know I have.
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I would give hw transcoding for free, but charge a subscription for stuff that use cloud resources, like user authentication, account management, also would kill relay services, but integrate tailscale transparently between server/client so you get secure remote connections, and don’t mess with cgnat shared public ip addresses, or exposing your server IP to the internet.
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Nice video. I run both. Jellyfin just to keep on top of whats going on there. It’s impossible to share stuff with friends and relatives on Jellyfin. It needs a simple login. Plex has got it, it is simple and it works. Jellyfin might be great but people will not know if they can’t even log in.
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is another question is given the price goes up at the end of the year, should people get in for a lifetime pass quick before the price goes up? ..I’ve only recently setup Plex, dont have a pass and not entirely sure if I really need it.. can I not simply VPN into my own network to play my videos? Are there other limitations I’ve not really worked out yet.. my NAS doesnt support hardware encoding so dont really understand what I am missing without a pass??
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My main issue is emby/jellyfin still doesn’t support enough clients properly no stupid web app a real app. My major way they could of argued it was remote streaming ok but if you proxy you need to pay
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I bought Plex Lifetime pass when Plex wasn’t a thing and remote streaming was a concept. Never regret it.
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I purchased my Lifetime Plex Pass in September of 2014. I bought a Plex Pass because I wanted to support Plex, wanted Plex support, and I wanted to be able to stream my media collection to devices in my home. I have used the ability to stream Plex to outside of my home only a handful of times. have used zero of the new mainstream Plex features since then (IE: DVR, streaming “live TV”, etc). I watched as they discontinued HTPC interface, and I excused it since I had moved to primarily using devices such as Roku, and now Shield TV. With all that said, I think what Plex can do to dig themselves out of this hole is to have Plex as a company decide on who their core users are, then offer the base features those users are looking for in Plex Pass. Everything else? Create one time payment options for modules that are static (IE: new codec support, new transcoding support, etc), or subscriptions for modules that require heavy maintenance over time (IE: DVR, streaming “live TV”, etc). This would allow them to bring in a revenue stream IF people truly want those features. (BTW: I haven’t watched many of your videos, buy this one did catch my eye because I have been looking more into Jellyfin since Plex seems to be abandoning users such as myself. I thoroughly enjoyed the video.)
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I have had a Lifetime Plex Pass for years now. This price increase does not effect me what-so-ever. I am only watching this video for informational purposes only. But I will say that Plex has had its Lifetime Plex Pass Price at $119.99 for over 10 years. It is what it is.
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I just installed Jellyfin just because I had tons of issues with with 4K HDR on Plex. Jellyfin on LG OLED seems to be much better for 4K HDR, so despite having the Plex Lifetime I will likely permanently switch to JF
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Cheaper is always better but $250 is ok for a life licence. Unless for some reason you plan to only use it a year or two. Only thing that will make me jump ship is all the intrusive social elements they are adding. Im still struggling to figure our how to get them to stop sending emails to people on my plx about content I watched. Also AV1 transcoding.
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The 2 speakers on this video have admitted they haven’t tried Emby enough to give an informed opinion about it, and it shows their lack of understanding, but i do not blame them, as Emby is by far the least popular option, but that does not mean it is the worst, it is simply that its features are less visible due to its odd position in the market. All the complaints they made of Jellyfin can be resolved with Emby. Emby is simply a more refined version of Jellyfin. Jellyfin feels like an Alpha release of Emby, except that it is an Alpha release from a previous iteration of Emby, from years ago, with less features and bugs from ages that Emby has already resolved years ago.
You get what you pay for.I f you don’t want to pay, you’ll get a software with its inherent limitations. Jellyfin may be good if you want to stream from your browser, alone, but it is certainly not a product i’d share with people who expect some degree of quality on a wide variety of clients over the long term. This is where Emby shines, not in the surface (uglier than Plex, i’ll admit), but in its reliability. Emby is stable, reliable and just works as expected, that’s what you get when you get a team of dedicated professional developers vs what developers can do on their free time. Client apps have just worked on all users on my server over the course of 3 years. I admit that it perhaps looks less polished than Plex, but they play your media as you want it, and they don’t shove other platform’s content as if they were ads in your face like Plex does.Emby is what Plex users signed up for before it decided it wanted to be their own streaming service before a platform for your media. For the uses of a single person or household, perhaps Jellyfin can fill the gap, but if you want quaility, and are put down by Plex’s direction, i’d say Emby is a very valid consideration.
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I switched to emby because it just works, Plex seems to load and load
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Why don’t more people use Infuse?
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First off i agree what one person said here, if you go by inflation should be $170. I use Plex and Emby, there are parts of both i love and hate. If you could take the 2 and merge then together, would make one hell of a product. Like checking on a actor, Emby will show all the media you have for that person, but Plex will not. Even something as a screen saver, Plex’s works across all platforms, but for some reason i can not get Emby’s screen saver to work right. Its little things like that, add a little extra. Plex has added so much blot to it, For me, I do not want PPV with ads, live TV, and DVR. Emby feels more like a closed system, which for me, works. As for codec, Emby has worked better for me then Plex. Plex seems to hate 265 10bit. My useless thought for the day ????????
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Roon is another company with zero support and astronomical prices that deserves to go bump.
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I stopped using plex after they put hardware encoding behind the paywall
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Have been using free Plex for a couple of years and I still can find no good reason why I should pay – I don’t need to view my content remotely and that seems to be the only advantage.
Perhaps I’ll buy now just to give them some money.
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Interesting video. You guys work well together. How about a video trashing Synology and their stupid hard drive lock-in? Do Synology and Plex just hate home users now? I’d love a video about running an internal email system. I just want to download email from the internet and also use it to allow internal devices to send email without ever sending email externally. Synology say their NAS devices do that but the hard drive lock-in leaves a horrible taste. Can other NAS devices do that?
I often wonder why companies don’t do free or cheap software for home users and make their money from business users. Could Jellyfin and Plex not find a market with hotels, hospitals, airlines etc? I will never pay for subscription software. The model makes sense for businesses as they just include it in their budgets but for home users it’s a nightmare. Years ago I paid a lot of money for Adobe Suite only for them to move to subscription. Never again. Now I use Open Source software wherever I can.
My view is that Plex increasing their lifetime pass cost is stupid. It’s not enough to make their business model work and just too much for home users. I was considering Roon until they increased their lifetime subscription cost. You are just paying for metadata that they get from the music companies. I use Lyrion music server and it is wonderful. Easy to use and free. JRiver is terrible and the guy behind is abusive if you complain about it.
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I think this is all about Plex distancing themselves from piracy. I think they want to stop people running Plex servers on seed boxes and charging $$$$.
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Can Tailscale be used with Plex to appear local or does it see the 100 IP address and nuke the connection? I am pretty sure that my old Amplifi Instant can get around this, well ina n instant. I do like the removal of the $0.99 per device charge for Android and iOS (although it still wanted to charge me after the date they said it would be free). I should have bought Plex Pass on Black Friday, or when it was $75…. Oh well
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Their is NO such thing as LIFETIME That will be gone????
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But what about Emby? LOL sorry couldn’t resist. I do love Emby. and yes I have an emby premiere as well.
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I gave up trying to get Plex remote streaming to work reliably with Comcast so I just use Tailscale, but I also only ever use Plex remotely with a table or phone. I realize it’s a bigger issue with set top boxes, built-in TV apps and such – the remote streaming pass could hurt a bit if you don’t already have lifetime.
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I have Plex Lifetime, bought it close to the beginning. Plex was dead when it stripped off the plugin support and left it as a shadow of what it used to be. Have been with Jellyfin ever since (even tho it was much worse at the time) but I would never switch back.
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JRiver Media Center for the WIN!
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Are the differences in Plex/Jellyfin users down to marketing/advertising of Jellyfin I wonder? There’s little budget for advertising for a free product.
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Great to see Alex, I’ve listened regularly to the Self Hosted podcast, great show ???? P.S. Alex, explain Sats on your website when you have a moment!
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Biggest problem with Jellyfin is not enough support for smart TV-s. Samsung doesn’t have Jellyfin app for their TV-s, Hisense on VidaaOS doesn’t have Jellyfin app, Phillips did’t had Jellyfin app on their TV-s without Android TV, LG didn’t have Jellyfin app looooong time. So Plex was most of the time only option for lot of people who wanted their media library on a big screen. I like UI on the Plex and simple setup, but I run both, and Jellyfin too. I bought lifetime plex pass 3 weeks ago because $250 is to much for a software only to be able to stream media remotely, or use hadware transcoding. So I think they wanted just a quick cash grab from people who got used to stream their media to mobile phone for free because not many users will buy $250 lifetime pass, so they will probably buy it now while it is “lower” price.
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Have a Synology and was using DS Video. I jumped straight to Jellyfin after seeing what Plex cost and compared it to what I get. I actually like Jellyfin more as it is more simple and I just want to see my content ????
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My history:
PLEX -> EMBY -> JELLYFIN …
The only issue I had with linux client. The latest version jellyfin client was not compatible with jellyfin server. I needed to rollback the jellyfin server to prev version.
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Really enjoyed that talk, even if I struggle to keep up with everything said.
I have watched a lot of NASCompares Videos recently due to being fed up with streaming service’s prices like netflix / amazon prime and so on ever increasing.
I’m in the process of build my own NAS and want to setup my own media libary. I’m not wearing an eye-patch I’m ripping my blu-rays and 4K UHD Discs to HDDs because of ease of use. I am currently at roughly 160 movies and a bunch of complete series like Game of Throns. Used physical media has gotten dirty cheap!
So the BIG reason I want to get rid of streaming is increasing monthly costs! I’m NOT wearing an eye-patch but why would i pay monthly for a software that allows me to stream my own media with my own hardware using my own electricty? I’m aware, that the development and upkeep of Software costs money, but most of the time nowadays price increases for Software aren’t due to that, but because of attempted increases in profit … Everything nowadays is aiming for subscriptions … Do you remember the times where you paid for MS Office once and then you owned a MS Office License?
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Inflation has gone up 36% in the past 10 years. Plex pass lifetime should go up to $165. $249 is too much. Glad I got mine at $120.
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When it comes to the Homerun HD tv guide listing on Plex its included in the lifetime pass. Jelly fin you have to pay every year and manually set it up. Plex its auto config.
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Jellyfin and emby lack in quality of the app and library detection. Emby and Jellyfin dont pick up or categorize episodes/files that plex does.
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34:20 As someone who doesnt use any of these three (but is looking for one to pick up and adopt), why would i spend money on Emby when i could spend the same money on Plex and get software eveyone and their mother is talking about and knows?
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Plex Pass user here. Besides slight client issues on WebOS, I have been extremely happy with Plex. The performance after enabling hw support is amazing even with a relatively tiny pipeline out of my house to my remote family.
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Walling off existing features is like BMW wanting $18 a month to use the heated seats that are already in the car. People feel cheated.
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well they put connection form outside behind a pay wall , what if on next update they put library bigger than 100 item behind a pay wall
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They’ll likely offer a grandfathered plan for old lifetime members and charge us a “lower” monthly fee. The new Lifetime will start at $250 but could go up. Then older lifetime users will be upset and buy the $250 plan to avoid a subscription.
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I bought a plex pass years ago for lifetime 99 dollars but haven’t used plex in forever. I switched to emby and havent looked back. It’s easier to use and will work fine without internet. Plex won’t even run without internet for me the way I have it setup
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I switched to jellyfin after the announcement that remote service would have to be paid for. But I already own a FQDN and a traefik reverse proxy that made it easy for me to ditch plex
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As it is, Plex is walking a very fine line for a lot of people moving to something else. I got the lifetime pass years ago so, until they try to charge me anything extra, I’ll be sticking with Plex.
I loved Plex Arcade. I can’t believe it didn’t get more attention. It was that $5/month for it that doomed the service. It could have been something that really set Plex apart from their competition.
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So lucky that I bought the lifetime subscription when it was on sale for 15% late last year
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They should have gone to the ads route. Just a banner. Should pay them more than a pay wall. And about Jellyfin, once they polish it’s android TV app and add Watch with friends to that one, Plex is done.
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And mushy peas. And warm beer. Good gawd.
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I run Plex (Lifetime Plex Pass), Emby (Emby Premiere), and Jellyfin LSIO Docker containers all side by side pointed at the same media library so I can compare. The TL;DR of my experience is that I use Jellyfin the most, because I’m not really bothered by what it’s missing and it doesn’t do anything that actively annoys me. On Emby, I’ve had playback issues on the Windows client, which is what I typically use. Plex has a laundry list of things that actively annoy me, so it’s the one I use the least.
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Why do you not discuss Emby?
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the new price hike is a BIG ask, when there is a comparable free alternative. I only bought my pass last year, defo worth it. Rather than thinking of it as a subscription for life isn’t it just buying the software, ya know, like we buy other products?
The people up in arms over the price hike generally weren’t paying, so if one of them now pay it’s a win I guess?
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I’m the guy that will recommend Emby. But I’ve had it running alongside Jellyfin for years. I can’t make the switch just yet. Emby is more polished and the clients work better. But as a whole I have little issue w/ Jellyfin. It’s leaps and bounds better than where it was forgot five years ago.
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Regarding HexOS, as soon as I found out Linus Sebastian was backing it any interest I had died.
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Offsetting the demonetization from Alex’s potty mouth ????
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Kretzschmar!!! #SelfHosted4Life! What a kickass surprise, Robbie, thanks!
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I’ve tried jellyfin a few years ago. It was so much more complicated to set up than Plex. Jellyfin isn’t available on qnap store, so I don’t even bother with it. I’ve had a lifetime subscription for Plex over 10 years.
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Actually Plex is not really a “streaming service”, if you boil it down to what clients are interested in – if you forget their nonsense, novalue own content – the two major components of their offering are software (mediaplayer, media management) and a kind of specialised dynamic DNS to make you “linux iso” available in other locations than your LAN.
With regard to lifetime licenses: the minimum viable price is the cash value of all cost incurred on their part including risk premiums and whatever return expectation their shareholders have. Taking the current per month pricing as a proxy and even applying a high (reflecting the risk) interest rate for calculating the cash values the current lifetime price either assumes a rather short lifetime or is way to low.
For me and my linux iso it is already jellyfin. Less headache, less content clutter, less “third party as a privace issue” problems.
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Glad I’m a og member of unraid.. bought it 10 years ago
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I love seeing the tailscale YouTube guy on NAS videos!
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The lack of forced cloud authentication is a bonus for Jellyfin. I dont share, I just want to watch my stuff in my house. Even the default account they require is too much for my use case. Why would I waste my precious upload bandwidth to share, they can set up their own Jellyfin server. lol
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I use Plex (over Jellyfin or Emby) for one reason only…their client app is on my TV. If Jellyfin gets their client app ported over to all the smart TV app stores, they’ll see a massive jump in their user base.
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Emby user here, I tried to give Jellyfin a good 6 month run. The lack of a proper offline files was pretty bad, but the clients are the largest problem with trying to use it full-time. The (IMO) non-functional Chromecast and Roku clients made switching the family over to it a deadstop.
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Jellyfin is free so 10000% jellyfin.
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Plex is a great alternative to Kaleidescape, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars. I still believe Plex offers excellent value for the money.
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Once jellyfin gets a little more user friendly fixes some small things plex is a goner
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Jekllyfin is too complicated. For the price if you use it is is peanuts for what you get. PLEX is King!!!
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Feel lucky that I picked up my lifetime pass in a sale a while back… To be honest I make use of Plexamp more than Plex itself so the new price would be a non-starter…. I did try Jellyfin for a bit before that but without a Samsung TV client it wasn’t a great user experience
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Always was.
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27:40 Security for both Plex and Jellyfin should not be a problem, we don’t open any ports, right? Funding model for Jellyfin is a legitimate argument though
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The only reason i had jellyfin running was because i couldnt share “Live TV” with my brother
but then i realized all i had to do was spin up a plex container for him to be the ‘owner’
now we all have everything we want & the price for PLEX is completely fair imo
Music, metadata, subtitles, it all just works & looks great.
development continues even though i paid once maybe 10 years ago.
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21:30 (1) Tailscale and alike, secure and complicated for other users (2) Open port, totally unsecure but easy for your grandpa… Is that all? No other variants? Something secure enough (even with optional access control) but as easy as connecting through an open port? There should exist something like that…. Something that starts with “r” and ends with “everse proxy” maybe?
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You can use jellyfin with apple TV and infuse client. It works great for me for 2-3 years.
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Alex has some pretty poor takes, and saying that you have to jump through steps to connect to your Plex server if the internet is down, like it’s some big deal, is completely disingenuous! All you have to do is enter your server’s IP address in one bloody setting!
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I’ve been using Plex for a loooong time, never really thought about needing a Pass, but now that the remote streaming thing is behind a paywall, guess I’ll be doing that..
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Eventually plex will cancel the lifetime licenses and force everyone onto subscriptions
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I’ve started to use Plex since the 2023 and 2024 Samsung TVs are not recognize the Synology and other DLNA devices for playback media over the LAN. Funny thing the earlier ones are totally fine with DLNA network playback… Since Plex can play back 4K HDR with Atmos audio and it’s available in the Samsung App Store, it’s a must for me and went for the lifetime play pass.
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With Hexos it should do a lifetime license at $10 a month for 3 years then you get your lifetime license rather than shelling out $299 in one go. I know in the long term it’s cost you $360 but at $10 a month that sounds and feel better to your wallet.
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Having been interested in software alternatives since the days when you used to order and pay for Linux install CDs and floppies through the post, I’m used to a lack of polish. I really like Jellyfin and am very impressed as how may formats Jellyfin will play and how stable it is. I admit that working and doing it’s job is a low bar, but it does what I need it to.
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tried jellyfish a year ago terrible, have they fixed the millions of bus yet? and Apple TV app was some random app. setting up port forward was a joke. metadata scraping was poor. Plex is better but still piss poor in many ways. I question if the devs of these apps actually use their apps cause they would know they suck at basic things
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i have a jellyfin server, but i watch my content from a web browser, so i don’t use their client apps. also, i too have an unraid nas server!
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Shitification. Just a great word that sums everything up in one word.
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If you already paid for it. This doesn’t change much
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This is all Nolan’s “Memento” situation when you wrongly chose Plex and now have been lying to yourself justifying that decision since. Don’ t be fooled by your 75 quid “lifetime” subscription. It is not you who decides whether it holds another year/month/day or not.
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Tailscale is shit for not accepting normal email signup
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jelly fin you have to side load there app for your tv which isnt great at all . that why video station is the best its free and it works
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19:48 the simple fact that jellyfin does NOT support the Plex naming scheme for media is an instant NO for even trying it.
If they want people to switch then this showstopper has to be removed, but the devs dont care as this has been highly requested for YEARS….
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bought my lifetime sub years ago… well worth it… sadly you snooze u lose
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I think the writing is on the wall. Plex is not going to last. Plex has always been about “cutting the wire” but it has changed. Now it is more about pushing its own streaming business as an alternative to Netflix, Disney, Amazon, etc. It started out with so much promise but so much has fallen by the wayside. They were going to do so much with photos but didn’t really commit resources. I backed out long ago and do something else now. It is the same for Home Videos and don’t get me started on Audiobooks. It’s not just Plex though is it. I have a Synology NAS and they have changed over the last few years, withdrawing Video Station, not using the integrated Intel chip and now pushing their own disks on us. All these companies will eventually lose out as there will be new offerings to fill the gap. We are certainly seeing that in the NAS market though some refinement is required before I change. This is what will eventually happen with Plex if they continue to forget about the needs of the people they originally attracted.
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Oh my god the teeth…
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Got my plex lifetime pass in the Black Friday sale last year for about £70. Think I got a bargain seeing how much its going up.
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if companies can change the temrs whenever they like, and you are seen that the company is already going the predatory way, isn’t it better not to buy anything from them? They for sure will change or invalidate your subscription anyway to extract more money of you.
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I’ve been putting off getting the lifetime pass for years now regretfully back when it was cheap but was never going to pay $250.
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I bought my lifetime pass a few years ago I think on a Black Friday deal for around $80. Best investment and I would highly recommend it.
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Have privacy concerns about Plex.
Purely my own crazy brain … but … yeah.
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OR – just use jellyfin.
The only benefit of Plex is that smart TVs often have a Plex app – but that’s it.
And if you already have even a mini PC of any sort attached to your TV, that stops being an issue…
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Remember to support Jellyfin
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You lost 4 out of 10 trust points for reporting from Shenzen. Good advice otherwise though. Thanks pal…..Just don’t wind up doing any propaganda ok? 6/10 advice 😉
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Does this mean that my friends wont be able to remote connect to my server and watch some of my movies ? without me getting
a plex pass? or will all my friends need a pass ?
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Confused, so my friends on free wont have access remotely to my server (lifetime pass) anymore?
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No, I don’t. Plex is bad. Sick and tired of their bloatware, their online accounts and paid features that I can get for free in other solutions. Prefer to donate $$$ to something like Jellyfin rather than pay for Plex.
I find most of your reviews very good but some of the latest vlogs are really not in the best interest of the average consumer. 240$ for a Plex license, 300$ for HexOS, a freaking TrueNAS skin, 250$ on a non upgradable ITX board and the list goes on, you seem to be ok with a lot of this stuff. But what about your audiance do they matter to you, do you think they are ok with this? Not sure who you are catering for but don’t think the people who are subscribed to this channel are loaded with money burning a hole in their pocket and just searching for opportunities to throw out the window their hard earned $ when everything is getting more expensive by the day.
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Lol
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Thanks for the video. A very interesting discussion and video with a variety of viewpoints expressed. Personally I prefer to rip my BR / DVDs via MakeMKV, encode them to h.264 / AVC and h.265 / hevc and then make them available through encoding via FFMpeg Intel QSV HW encoding in 1920x and 1280x, so at least 4 versions. ???? I host using Raspian or Ubuntu server running Samba and mini-DLNA. A LOT of work and storage. ???? So I can well understand people using Plex. Different stfokes for different folks.
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I’m favoured financially with Bitcoin ETFs approval, Thank you buddy.$28,600 weekly profit regardless of how bad it gets on the economy.
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Nope I smell a rat! The fact they are financial trouble is telling, these fuckers absolutely will sell out sounds lie they are well on the way ! Don’t be surprised when plex insert ads to your own hosted media! They can fk off! Enjoy your “ lifetime “ subscription!
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If the Server owner has Plex Pass will home users also be required to buy Plex Pass as well to access the server remotely?
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I want to interview you in voice dude. Hooooooo BOY how DARE you?
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Kinda disappointed with this one. Even if it’s not sponsored, it totally gives off FOMO vibes- “hurry before the price goes up!” Plex has turned into a bloated mess with ads and features no one asked for. Would’ve been way cooler to shine a light on Jellyfin instead – it’s free, open-source and actually listens to users. This push to grab a Plex Pass feels off.
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Nah, it is time to switch to something better
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I can’t wait to have ads every 10 minutes when watching my medias, because they need more money to do the same things they’ve been doing since the beginning.
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Just bought lifetime emby, it’s clean and straightforward compare to Plex
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Got that lifetime pass long ago. Needed the transcoding for use with old hardware clients that don’t support 4k. The price for the pass was paid off long ago by ditching streaming services.
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I will take FOSS everytime and deal w/ the potential issues. I’m not against companies turning a profit. It’s when they try to milk every cent out of their customers that I have a problem. The writing was on the wall years ago when it came to Plex. It’s why I jumped ship back then. Saw this coming and wanted nothing to do w/ them. Vote w/ you wallets people, it’s the only power you have.
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Jellyfin works but it’s like building your own garage and convincing yourself it’s as good as one built by a Pro.
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Thanks for your video, my kids are using Plex a lot with external access to my Terramaster F5-422 and I think I need to get a lifetime pass. Is there any other valid promo code? I tried setting up Jellyfin on my device but I couldn’t get hardware transcoding to work correctly on the fly. Transcoding is either fully enabled or disabled. For 1080p it’s fine. But my device is too weak (Celeron J3455 4 cores) to encode 4K quickly, and on Plex I can use the option to watch 4K in original quality.
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My guy. The soul reason that i do not watch you so much is your teeth. Im sorry but fix them becouse i like you.
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Just hope you do not need support ever… there is no way to contact them and community forums are basically dead. The only TV channel I watch has disappeared about one year ago and they never updated the EPG, the Alexa skill is missing from the local Amazon marketplace and there is a threat from 2018 with no updates whatsoever, despite the continuous requests. the app has accessibility issues that have not been addressed in years…
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I’m using Plex locally all the time but recently I gave acces to my dad and my sister so they can watch all the family video’s from their homes. Do I need to get a subscription if I want them to have access to my Plex server? They are using the apps on iPhone, Chromecast and Apple TV.
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Remember when Lando told Dartyh Vader “But we had a deal!”
What was Vaders response?
If you support a company that will change free features into paid ones you are going to have a bad time down the road.
And yes even you lifetime guys will eventually get robbed at some point with features missing from lifetime subs.
I have seen this movie far too many times.
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I particularly asked about this (ads) given:
Skip Ads for Recorded TV
If you have content recorded from Plex DVR that has commercials, go past them automatically, manually, or choose not to entirely. (Skip Ads is for personal media only.)
Note : “personal media only”.
The response I received confirmed that commercial movies you selected DID come with ads.
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*Update – read this first* Hi guys, 9AM here in China and catching up. 6,800 views and 183 comments later, it looks like we need more discussion! Speaking with Alex over on KTZ for a follow up on this and it certainly warrants a discussion! I cannot respond to the comments very easily ATM, but just to confirm try and ‘blanket’ answer the same Qs here in a pinned post 1) Yep, I definitely need to discuss the alternatives more and that’s the main reason for the follow up video collab coming soon. *however* I did make a big video precisely on this shortly after it leaked last year about the price increase and you can find it here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vsBuJdRe4M 2) Jellyfin (and Emby to a slightly lesser extent as it has more paid elements) are great alternatives (address more in this part of a 3 part series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krIxM7DT_3w ) but for a lot of users to the ease of adding client devices for less tech knowledgable users, commercial customer service support (to a point), more client apps supported is a big appeal. Finally 3), I did a TERRIBLE job of saying in this video that the main point is that if you are using plex right now and paying monthly or annually, its better value to get the plex pass now at 119 rather than waiting till after April and paying normal month/year subscription. This is not about those who never used plex and/or use other platforms should now ‘jump on board the plex ship asap’. I do elaborate on the month/year vs lifetime value thing in the last 3rd of this vid, but I SHOULD have added this to the intro. Apologies. Chat soon guys
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So they are putting the remote viewing behind a paywall, AS WELL AS removing the “Watch Together” feature!
Plex is just after money rather than serving a community now, and I for one don’t want to give them mine unless that feature comes back!
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If you care about privacy take jellyfin/emby
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just switched to plex from jellyfin after upgrading my nas to something that had some more horse power i have since allowed my family to my collection of videos. When using jellyfin was annoying to some of them so allowing them direct access to nas through plex no vpn makes it convenient
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I’ve been a lifetime member for a long time, and have been very happy with it. I’ll happily support Plex. Hope they can become financially stable.
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Only ever used Jellyfin and have had only good experiences with it
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Jellyfin. The answer is Jellyfin. It works great today, improves all the time and is completely open source and free!
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People should remember “A lifetime subscription” is NOT your lifetime but the lifetime of the product which could be dying a year or worse still just months away!……..
I’ll never be fooled by these so called “Lifetime subscription” plans again.
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I’ve heard too many horror stories, I never bought it and never will. Plex, Synology, Apple, Ubiquity, bamboo labs, and many other companies either have never gotten my money or never will again. I’m tired of companies that act like they know what’s best and will continue bashing my head against a never ending wall of FOS software until I make it work the way I want it to work or until I go insane and ditch it all to live under a rock
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Edit:
1) I’m saying this fron Switzerland. No, we dont drive on golden roads. After military service I had barely enough to live. Thanks God I was able to learb enough through free “channels” (yt, foruns, irc) and now with more money I pay back, but not like this.
I know how it feels for the financially unlucky – having to decide between healthy food and knowledge.
I took ur last 2 Werks of vid uploads:
– 23 Videos
– 10 (!) for members only.
People will support you out of free will, almost half of your vids for (in my case) twice the pay only feels like extortion.
Your doing too much with members only videos. Do you think people can afford to have 100 subscriptions? I alrdy habe YT premium, now I need to sub to every fifth channel (its getting more and more by the day). I directly pay you with YT premium, Im bit annoyed at the casual demand of paying you twice.
Of course therew netflix and internet And spotlfy and and and? People wont tolerate this. The fist site is full of membrs only. People are allergic to too greedyness.
And I say that fron Switzerland!.
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Ask yourself how well you think Plex is doing financially if they have to lay off 20% of staff and raise prises 100%. This is not a healthy company and these are dying breaths.
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Another corporatized bit of software it sounds like. These days I would stay far away
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So Plex over emby?
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So now, instead of providing good info and content, possibly “honest reviews” instead of swinging between whomever pays more, you are working as a sales junkie?
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Pathetic. Instead of telling people move to Jellyfin to save money! You are siding with the culprit. Do you know that once you do lifetime then it is all increases from there. Are you guys fining money on trees? Why then give up hundreds of dollars hard earned to a company offering nothing new for the past so many years…
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who uses this trash? imagine being “okay with this” stupid price hike. stop supporting almost-predatory business practices & start supporting alternative projects. Start donating to Jellyfin & other apps & start being active in feature requests & directing it to what you THINK you like in Plex
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I was bitten with the lifetime subscription at dvdfab and then it got banned in the US. I don’t want to take a chance with this and then it also gets banned. ????
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Plex is going in the wrong direction for my purposes. I bought Plex to manage my media. I particularly wanted the features that would sync/download local content between my server and other devices. The issue is that those features never really worked correctly. Plex ocassionally seems to say they’ve fixed sync (which they ditched), and now they’ve made fixes to downloads, but neither works well for me, once file sizes get large enough for video files. Now Plex is so focused on streaming and ad revenue, that I imagine it soon going in a direction I don’t want. I bought my lifetime pass over a decade ago. I’ve got my value, but Jellyfin is getting better every day at supporting the things I really care about. I can imagine Jellyfin being everything I need sometime in the next several years. If I didn’t already have a lifetime plex pass, I would likely just go to Jellyfin right now.
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Is “lifetime” really “lifetime”? Many companies have changed their definition of “lifetime,” so what happens if “lifetime” isn’t actually for a lifetime anymore? Could anything change, or have terms already been altered?
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Jellyfin and Cloudflare tunnel/ZeroTier or similar for remote access
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Only way I will stick with Plex and get a lifetime pass is a nice discount. There are other vendors that can do what Plex does.
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I bought a lifetime PlexPass a few years ago. I use the product and I bought it mainly to support it. Now, I love the extra features. I did the same with MakeMKV. I wanted to do my part to make sure it’s available for years to come. If you use Plex, then consider getting the membership.
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They might pull a Teamviewer and eventually pull everyone on a subscription saying that your lifetime license is limited to a fixed version..
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It was clear from the very start they were going this way. There’s alternatives. I hate streaming (it’s always slower and more finicky than playing content locally), so i just use a media player box to play movies from my nas. For those who need streaming, there’s emby and jellyfin.
For remote access, there’s lots of options – ts, zt, cf, etc
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Free tier of Plex + running my own home-access VPN (on a travel router) = my whole family can watch their stuff while on holiday.
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Should VPN with server at your router with access to your local network be enough to Plex think that you are always at home? 🙂
Although im using Jellyfin from very beginning since find that online sign in to access local content is a piece of….
P.S. nowdays maaaany companies have dumb tactic and calling “lifetime” something actually not even close to this word (hello Kindle with lifetime /3 years books, leaving themself rights to change content of sold books and meanwhile forbidding download bought books for offline reading in formats like .pdf).
I”d suggest to spent part of that money (lifetime subscription) to opensource projects like Jellyfin etc. Such support allows continue improve project while keeping it free for everyone.
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Emby premiere. Don’t look back.
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This is why I love your channel you know what’s up and up and you actually are a guy that understands technology and you’re an nas genius
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And jellyfin isn’t even on plexus level All it has going for it is it can do some things that Plex can do and there’s not many options out there that’s all it has going for it other than it being free but remote stream is even harder and more annoying on jellyfin
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give me all your movies, then pay me to watch them
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I don’t know why everyone’s complaining about the subscription cost I mean it’s great to get a cheap now but even 2:50 is a thousand times worth that compared to paying for the streaming services which if most people have more than one usually are paying a good amount of money and in less than a year would have already paid back what it would be for a Plex account anyways canceling those
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Correction: You need to get the f**k away from that dumpster fire called Plex, and go get something else… Anything really, e.g. Jellyfin or Kodi etc. That’s the real no-brainer here.
Paying a sub to access my own media, or even draconian one-time fees like this shit, you know a company like that is circling the drain.
You may not be sponsored by them, but do kindly f**k off with your shill BS, it’s pathetic tbh.
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We need to support Jellyfin right now
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I still don’t understand why people use Plex, but that’s my own opinion.
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Purchased the Lifetime pass years ago, simple to share with my sons In College
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What happens if I buy the Plex Lifetime license before 29.3.25, will the price remain the same? Or will it be increased from April 1?
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Heres the thing.
Do we really trust PLEX to not change their mind at some point in the ‘lifetime’ future, and either shut off access or double the price somehow? No, of course not. They have repeatedly proven that they are not to be trusted at all. For that reason alone … myself and others I know … we’re out. They are not the only game in town, and today there are too many free pieces of software to use that do the same. You dont need their live services. They have created a walled garden, that you dont need to touch grass.
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With Jellyfin being as good as it is, I’d be reluctant to pay the half current price of a lifetime Plex pass, but when the price goes up to the new rates, it’s game over as far as I’m concerned. I think the price increase is going to cause a surge in popularity of Jellyfin (and Emby to a lesser degree), but it makes me wonder if other’s are thinking the same, how long is Plex’s “lifetime” going to be? It could end up shutting down if people jump ship and subscriptions drop.
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I’ll level with you: they put the lifetime membership on sale around Black Friday. I scored mine for $75 years ago. You can also score coupons for the discount as well. The features that Plex has make it worth it.
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Wonder if he bumped into anyone from Storaxa lol..
Losing the remote side of things is the only Plex thing that bothers me as I’ve been using it for years when travelling for work…
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no, i dont think so
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You predicted this last year I believe. I bought my lifetime pass then. Do not regret at all. Thanks for all of your content.
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Yeah, no thanks.
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And this is why I use Jellyfin and have been donating to them monthly
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Jellyfin and a cheap mini pc with n100 and no more subscription’s
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Lay-off 20% of staff → Increase prices 100% → Rinse and repeat. Grimy company. I know how this story ends. I’d rather vote with my wallet and donate to Jellyfin…unless I can pay a one-time fee and Plex will promise not to bombard me with junk garbage and phone home every 10 seconds…forever?
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this recent change as well as the recent addition of “rentals” is what made me switch to Jellyfin, that and the fact that JMP uses MPV as a backend. yeah, it’s a bit of a learning curve, but it’s worth it imo.
also SwiftFin on iOS is visually similar to Plex’s mobile app as well (Plex app is also written in Swift iirc)
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I paid just under £60 for my Plex lifetime pass, back in 2020 ????
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Just bought the lifetime. I wouldn’t pay the new price thought and I would just switch to using Jellyfin only. Jellyfin is much better
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Why? 5 years from now i wouldn’t be surprised if they had a system in place to block pirated content. Plex has fully lost its way
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didint watch, but the title, hell no, i left plex quickly when they got greedy and would not allow ME to play MY files wherever i was. ive been on jellyfin dor years, that I host, with MY files. they didint get the chance to control MY access. period. no more discussion on this topic.
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Anyone who’s been subscribed to the channel knows that he told us about this increase a year ago.
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No thanks – Seems pointless to me to pay money and still get adds every 5 minutes. Also the catalogue only seems to be B or C grade films.
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Nope
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Respectfully, giving money to Plex now is a bad take imho, it’s a show of support towards Plex. Vote with your wallet, use Jellyfin (for free lol)
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I bought it years ago when it was something like $ 75
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I’m afraid TOS will change and it could just disappear someday. It is just a subscription.
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Nah, I don’t think I will.
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I remember when it went from $75 to $150 back in 2014, wasn’t until 3 years later when I got an email offer to pay $75 for it and told myself if I’ve still been using it after all these years then I may as well pull the trigger on it, now over a decade later it basically maths out to less than $7.50/year… but still super mad that they’re increasing the price again AND locking away remote streaming, even though it doesn’t affect me as a lifetime Plex Pass owner it’s one of the main selling points
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Lifetime plex user, love it. 4k video really needs transcoding, or you cripple your hardware.
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I rather get Emby
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I already have a lifetime plex pass purchase several years ago but a question. My two daughters are living out of home.
Question : In order to allow them to continue to access to my plex server, does it mean after April 29 I will also have to pay every year for a “remote playback option” ?
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Plex pass is the fastest lifetime purchase I made and I only use plexamp.
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Plex uses MPV as the backend player. That’s all the reason I need to stay with Plex and why I’m not switching.
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No you don’t. Use Jellyfin like any sane person.
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“Im altering the deal, pray i dont alter it any further.” – Darth Vader
No you shouldnt, next time they create plex pass plus and lock the most used features behind it…
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Thanks, currently in Hainan island China watching your video on Youtube.
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I got my lifetime subscription the moment I calculated I had already spent over 240 euro on monthlies… Oops 🙂
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Well, if your use case can be described with “lots of features that ‘just work’, without DIY-fussing with VPNs and shiz”, this might be relevant to you. EDIT: i’m quite happy with sshfs – you can even map sshfs to a windows drive letter. As “one of those Millennials”, i’ve learned how to use a reasonable directory (folder) structure, to organize my files. …those pesky youngens seem to think that everything MUST be search-based! ????
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Absolutely agree, get it NOW!
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lmao 250 bucks? great news for jellyfin
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Dude don’t go too high up on those sky scrapers in China, tofu dreg buildings everywhere that dismantle with just the wind
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I am a new user, and my concern is getting friends into it is going to be more difficult. Now, if they have to pay to stream it from my server.
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I bought one years ago. That being said, I run Plex, Emby, and Jellyfin containers side by side pointed at the same media library, and Plex is probably my least favorite of the three.
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Why not just use Tailscale and everyone is on the local network???
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4:31 You know what’s cheaper than $1.99 remote watch pass? Setting up a VPN on your own NAS and connecting to it like that.
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Surely you can just use Tailscale for remote access?
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I’m just disappointed Robbie didn’t invite the seagulls along with him on his little jolly!
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Already got one. Plexamp!
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I use jellyfin and will never go back
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I switched to Jellyfin years ago and never looked back.
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That doesn’t look like Britain. 😛
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Bought my lifetime subscription years ago
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Took out my lifetime pass in 2012, so bit before you stated.
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The last thing i want is another device, they should focus on making the web player and other client apps better, and fix the massive amount of bugs and missing features those don’t have…its a joke, i hope a better alternative (other than jellyfin) comes soon because its obvious this company isn’t focusing anymore on the actual experience, just more profit…
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I only use plex to stream my music collection. I love it as is.
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Legally they could discontinue offering the lifetime membership anytime they wanted to, but it would be illegal to discontinue those that already have paid for it. It would also be a class action if they attempted to rename it or substitute it with something above it. As long as they are in business, they have to honor those that have the life time membeship, and even if they sold it or did a merger, they still have to honor it. There is no legal way around it.
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Imagine being lying trash.
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lol, i just tried to click on your browser tab.
I also have many tabs open.
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im a lifetimeplex user but tbh if i started today i would not mind paying 4GBP a month if the core service and audiobook support was there. remove everything external live whatever.
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if something happens and you get locked out of your account you have to install 3rd party software gain access. 3 times in the last 7 month Plex has lost my credentials and I could not contact Plex. I had to load Twitter or facebook to even request help. I don’t have accounts at twitter and facebook and I don’t want to join them. I am looking for another option then Plex. when you get into Plex help finally you have to prove you paid. I had to prove I paid 6 years ago. how the hell do you find that info from your bank? could be 5 years could be 7 years. Help has been sketchy at best. the last time I said no you look me up and they did found me with in 2 mins. faster then me going back in my bank account. Plex is failing and failing fast.
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Plex should have just stuck with providing access to our media instead of adding access to live tv and linking to external streaming services. I’ve been a lifetime plex user for many years but now only use Jellyfin for all video which is clean/ad free and just displays what I want. Still use PlexAmp for when I’m out of the house.
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I have used Plex for at least 10 years. I have been a lifetime since like the first month. I will admit I still only use it for my own media. I don’t care anything about the live tv or movies. The point of having all of my media digital is to not have to deal with ads. The idea that Amazon is possibly going to start charging to watch Prime Video ad free is making me feel like it may be time to get rid of that. I am not paying $ and then have to deal with ads. I sadly will have to say goodbye to Plex if they put my use of the product behind a pay or ad wall. I feel like I have gotten my monies worth from my lifetime. I wish they would have stuck to what made Plex great, software for watching your own media.
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dont think the lifetime will go for already buyer because every company that had this deal and stop it, they didn’t touch those who buy it.
i can give few examples from video games.
if they going to stop it from new buyers i hope they gonna say something like you have 1 month to buy it so those who can would buy and support.
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If they take away feature support to life-time users, I think they will end up in a worst situation than they already are in. Just saying.
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I wish that we could not be locked into giver allow me to use my own crap and organize it my way not a database because people can miss with it allow it as secondary source as photos but don’t change my original file difference
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I still have until March 2024 paid on Plex, but I dropped it, Plex got real janky on a lot of things, I use Emby now and I love it, also retired the weak little AS1102T.
Today I set up my new Lockerstor Gen 2 AS6702T, this is the one I had wanted, just couldn’t afford it, I have it now and I’m loving it.
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Bro can’t even watch transformers anymore:.(
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I have had lifetime after I have used it a month. It was on sale and I have been very happy. I don’t care about the “extras” they add like the pay services, the free tv/movies, or any of what I have started considering bloat. I just don’t use that stuff. I love that I can share my media with family and a couple of friends. I have always thought that the lifetime options of any software being phased out. I feel companies offer it when they are small and use it to make their product better. I am hoping they won’t do this but, I will use my pillow app as an example, I purchased the add/pro version that would give me access to everything, not the dev has dropped things behind a monthly paywall. It doesn’t affect how I use the app so I don’t care much. If it ever makes it where I can’t use it, that will be unfortunate and I will just move on. If Plex ever got to where they nickel and dime’d my ability to use my own media, I will just move on.
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If they were to suspend my lifetime Plexpass or begin to “nickel and dime” me for services I would move on. They can save money by not giving me all that Plex streaming content I don’t use. I just use the core media server features.
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About time plex died , there apps suck arse , there to interested in there streaming adds , then to fix there backend , switched to jellyfin and its is 100% better less ram usage , less cpu , and will pickup older gpus for transcode , and dosent force me to pay to use my own gpu
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So now i am affraid of what will happen to plex and my plex pass, when will someone put a tutorial to access jellyfin outside local network?
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I was thinking of buying the Plex Pass. Will I be wasting my money if they end the lifetime option?
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The moment Plex starts showing any form of in-video advertisement, they can wave goodbye to more than half of their users. Or if they start meddling with perpetual licences. I’m very sure Plex is aware that Jellyfin is just getting better over time. Give Jellyfin one more year, and we will see a sizeable decline in “60M” active users number.
It’s really hard to grow user base, but in days of open source software being such a strong competitor, its super easy to loose it.
After all, it’s just a media player…
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Imho the lifetime pass was always a bad idea. Just charge $20 a year so they have recurring revenue.
Plex is an enthusiast thing and they would have saturated their market base and can’t grow more other than waiting for kids to get to a certain age when they move out etc so they get their own stuff.
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They could poll current users for things things that regularly piss them off and make people look elsewhere for a start. I’ll give one example: You add a movie that Plex is not 100% sure about. The file name and year etc is fine and to their requirements, yet Plex misidentifies it rather than leave it alone or highlight it in some manner for user intervention. Because it’s been incorrectly matched (and frequently with any other letter of the alphabet than what the file name starts with, which is maddening) you then have to scroll through every damn movie thumbnail looking for something that doesn’t belong. I don’t know how many times I’ve done this but with over 1200 movies it takes a long time. It doesn’t always appear in recently added either which would simplify finding it.
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This idea of giving away premium software free should go away. Should not be free if it costs millions to develop.
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i got the plex lifetime because its was a good did and didnt want to risk waiting & have to deal with a price hike.if the cut that lifetime pass am fileing a classaction lawsuit lol
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Ive been using plex for a few years now just to store and run my own media from as a basic home user. Just moved home and now considering a NAS for a Plex server as a gift to myself. So this is the first I’ve heard of Jellyfin, I will check it out.
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I switched to Jellyfin months ago, so glad I did.
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Here’s an idea… Plex could fix offline downloads to stop the bleeding of users. This is why I’ve stopped using Plex.
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I go back and forth between plex and jellyfin. Both do things I like that the other doesn’t do.
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Watching your recording of your daughters birthday with the family and half way through a AstraZeneca or Viagra commercial starts playing…
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I love Plex. Really have no complaints. Would be nice if they added digital comics as an option
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It’s like you’re giving them ideas to screw us. If they go the ad support way, then they may as well get ready to file bankruptcy. We’re all leaving their ass in the dust.
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If they get heavy handed with lifetime restrictions, Jellyfin migrations will really take off.
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Plex Wiki shows they had 100 employees in 2019. So instead of saying 20% of them have been laid off, why not be realistic? They laid off 20 people. That’s all. But I guess 20% seems more scary than just 20 people.
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Cant they have a version for the majority of us lifetime pass holders that just want “our library” with hw acceleration and all the other stuff as a separate product or upgrade?
Still love Plex, really hope they don’t mess with the ad free environment. Also being able to use Plex on my home network even when their is no active Internet (wan no lan yes) is essential.
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Plex has left the kodi addon broken for months now despite a simple patch being available on github. Why don’t they push an update to their repository? It really shows a lack of care to neglect small easy but useful fixes.
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I’m afraid you’ve given them ideas
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i have a plex lifetime pas also years ago i think the ones that have a plex lifetime pass should keep it because they already purchases it. plex needs to make a plug that tells you when a show is completed or ongoing. stil.
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With the very recent news that Plexamp will become free (as in Beer), it seems to me that the death of the Plex Pass might actually becone a thing. Not in so far as increasing clamp downs upon its use, but rather in the watering down of the features previously sold as exclusive functions of said Software. In this case that of Audio Media Steaming. Makes you wonder if, or when Video Transcoding will join this party.
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I got a lifetime pass years ago for about £40. It was such a giid offer i couldn’t refuse it. It makes sense to stop doing that now. But if they restrict it ill be completely pissed off and wouldn’t give them another penny. ????
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Is they renege on the lifetime pass I’ll move to Emby and Plex can go stuff themselves.
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I could never get plex to work properly. It was always reducing resolution. I’m sure it was my fault but I wasn’t able to figure it out. I went to Kodi, which is quirky but does work. I have all my optical disks transferred to a server and am able to watch them in full resolution.
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If they add advertisements to my own server for ANY of my users, I’m 110% out. And that’s speaking as a 5+ year Lifetime pass user. I am already annoyed with the Plex TV and Movies sections that only serve to confuse my users.
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Can’t they remove the need for their own servers (for those of us hosting our own servers)
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Yeah… if they get rid of the lifetime pass I’ll leave Plex even tho I have one already. The real problem is that if they screw over their lifetime pass members the won’t get recommended as much, and new people who have no idea what plex is will get directed to other options by the community when they first set up a home media server.
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plex somewhat could be good for them bu t people, plex cloud storage lol no way, the amount of pirated content on that system would be amazing!
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I am laughing at ‘Lifetime’ chimps lmao.
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It’s a scam, for the ones buying a lifetime subcription like me right now but if core features will be lost to life ttime users i’m leaving. This damn program is a pain in the ass anyway in order to build te library, setting it up and running it of appropriate hardware.
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I’ve been using Plex for free for years did not know they were in trouble, just bought a lifetime pass to show support. I use it every day.
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I got a lifetime pass a few years ago. I couldn’t list for you the features I unlocked with it, I largely just wanted to give some cash to the developers, but didn’t want to get locked into a subscription. Even then I was concerned about the sustainability of such a deal. As well as ongoing development, there’s likely a lot of upkeep for the infrastructure, And with one off payments being an attractive option, unless you continually expand marketshare, that income will plateau.
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Plex needs to get rid of useless features. The live TV has to go. It is terrible
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Don’t punish the users who purchased a lifetime subscription by taking it away. Instead make it so the free users cannot access shared libraries from the web or tv apps like they currently can! Since many who have lifetime passes are probably trying to run their own private Netflix equivalent for their friends and family, this will make it so their “clients” also need a plex pass to view… a cheaper tier for around $2/month that allows streaming from web or tv app (no mobile streaming, and no other plex pass features) would be appealing – could make it so it plays only 30 minutes per day unrestricted and/or first 2 minutes of the video, so they could at least try it out to see what they would be missing – then pop up with a message instructing them how to purchase if they want more! If each Plex server has three or four “clients” then this is a good revenue opportunity. They could do variations on this like after the first few minutes, throttle down the quality by forcing transcoding on the server and limiting to SD quality and mono audio (would probably be fine on a phone/mobile device which is why this cheap tier would not allow streaming to mobile). And stop selling new lifetime subscriptions in the short term, and maybe only introduce them at an undetermined rate or like a lottery every so only to current subscribers. Then this will make the people who bought one feel even more special and they can brag about it online to everyone, and make people stay subscribed in hopes they may scoop up one!
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Please stop giving Plex ideas haha.
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Just be a movie db stop with all the other nonsense
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They are between a rock and a hard place, anything they do that pisses off their customers will lead to their customers switching to Jellyfin.
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i just want to watch my own content in peace. no ads, no subscription, no fancy “features”. Hopefully they wont mess with that.
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If they have 20 million users 100 USD each, they would have earned 2 Billion USD!!!! Put on a Stock ETF with only three percent revenue they would have 60 Million USD per year. Or did they need 2 Billion USD for the Plex software?
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Just a public criticism of PlexAmp on Windows. The UI is garbage.
I realize that the person at Plex who champions PlexAmp does not give a damn about what I think. I have seen this attitude on several software titles that I beta tested and the software was withdrawn from the market. Honestly the PlexAmp UI only needs a FEW changes to make it acceptable.
Plex player on Windows is pretty good, thought the non-changeable color background color in the Photos section is criminal, I NEED a white/gray/black background.
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They were repeatedly told no one wanted their streaming crap. They didn’t fix all the issues with the all, denied they had these issues, still deny the issues, and have sank with the stream garbage. The CEO should be fired because he was told repeatedly by his customer base that that is t what they wanted. FIX YOUR DAMN APPS AND FORGET ABOUT THIS OTHER JUNK.
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Plex needs to officially support and encourage Plugins (yes I know Plugins already works for now) to make them more competitive to Emby and Jellyfin
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I miss the seagulls…
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Plex is cool
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Go add supported go broke as people will find an alternative product
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Plex needs to make a digital content store so members can buy movies and TV shows and able to keep them alot like apple tv
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Lifetime licenses with free updates has always been a killer. The developers get more money in one shot, then that’s it. I got burned by that with another software and I go monthly at this point in time.
Also, I mentioned in another post that Plex has tried to be the do all and end all application for media. I left them because to me, their UI became a mess. They need to simplify that and make it more use friendly. I would also suggest that they start with a basic package and if users want the additional features, they could add modules for additional fees. It shouldn’t be an all or nothing set up.
Maybe Plex does this now, but my NAS set up is two Synology NAS’s and one QNAP. I’m scaling down and want remove the QNAP that has the intel processor.
I have a mini pc that works great for transcoding and uses less power. I currently use Emby. Emby looks like it should access network shares,but it doesn’t seem to work and I don’t want to have to maintain two copies of my media. I’ll look at Plex again and maybe I’ll consider moving back.
I’ll see.
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Having spent the money for a lifetime pass, I want two things. Hardware acceleration on my server, and zero ads. If I lose either of those, either because they remove the lifetime pass, or strip features from those with it, I’ll be looking elsewhere or just stop using Plex altogether. I do want to be clear though, I don’t care if people that use my server that haven’t been paying for a Plex pass start receiving ads, as long as those within my “home” still don’t see ads.
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I can see them getting rid of the lifetime pass for any new users, but if they start restricting those of us that have lifetime pass already and have been long time supporters, I think they are going to have more bad blood then they want to deal with.
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I bought a lifetime Plex Pass years ago.
Now, I run Plex, Jellyfin, and Emby containers side by side, all pointed at the same media library, so I can compare. I’ve even thought about buying a lifetime Emby license (I might if I caught it on sale) to make that comparison better.
But I basically just use Jellyfin these days, I have no reason to look at the others besides seeing how they do things differently, and I haven’t found anything they really do better than Jellyfin does – at least not that I care about. Plex will let you download transcoded versions of stuff to mobile while Jellyfin will only let you download the full fat version, but I don’t watch stuff on mobile, so I don’t care.
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Everybody gangsta until they lose their customers to Jellyfin ????????
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The moment #plex removes my lifetime pass I’m out.
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No matter what changes they have in mind, let me say that I will not subscribe to anything anymore. I cancelled everything a couple of years ago and will not go back. Every effin company tries to go to subscription model, which effectively filters out most software that I might buy for one-off fee.
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Plex has tried “Hardware” before. Didn’t work. They maybe should make a Plex OS for TV’s etc like Roku. They also need to separate plex server more from their plex streaming. Currently how they have it can be confusing to a lot of people. Also people who have their own content are not going to watch Ad supported content.
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Thanks for the update!
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I get that people have to work and get paid for that work but why should we as customers have to pay for dumb decisions they make. I am torn. I am a happy lifetime license for two accounts. If they break their promise I will really thing hard about another platform. I hope they grandfather lifetimers in. I would be interested to see what their TOS were back when they initially released it. Web Time Machine?
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I think allowing hardware encoding for free with ads makes sense.
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AS a purchaser of 2 lifetime passes to support them I would be annoyed if they started scrapping it…. I’d be off to use jellyfin
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I’ve had a “Lifetime” Plex Pass since it went on “sale” for $75 in Sept 2014.
Timely video what with the PlexAmp news.
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I bought lifetime purely for the software. I don’t care about, or have ever used the shitty movie/tv show feature.
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Why use Plex, let alone be forced to pay for that trash-fire, when Jellyfin is a thing?
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I dont even understand what the point of all this is. PLEX is a libary that makes your stuff look like netflix. I see how their software has value by downloading the information and adding pictures by itself, BUT as long as i’m in my local network my TV just looks for the local plex server. If they make me watch advertisements before my own stuff…. I switch to another software.
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They do any of this people will just switch to emby or jellyfin
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I’m still confused, because i just know them as a software that basicly turns my movies/shows DVD/Blueray rips into a “netflix libary”.
FOR ME it’s a freeware software like VLC player (that replayed winamp). Once i installed it on my TV i noticed that there are a lot of random channels that i didnt care about, because my TV has enoth channels that i dont need. (it even comes with a Samsung App that gives me EVEN MORE). Why would i need extra channels from Plex?
Then i saw you making a video about it and noticed that they thought that they spend a lot of money to implement random channels…. and they even want money for it, while people start to turn away from streaming services? WHO came up with this?
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I trust they nailed their destiny with going woke, like bud lite and Target.
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Are they really in that much trouble? I hope not. Plexamp is probably the best music player I’ve ever used.
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I bought the lifetime pass for DVR recording abilities. They better not end it. I bought it two years ago and has barely paid for itself.
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Bought my Plex lifetim pass four months ago. I would be quite pissed….
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I have a Lifetime Pass but I really don’t use it anyway. My Plex use is almost exclusively to play and manage my extensive music collection. Hardware transcoding isn’t required for music and I think that their streaming media is just junk that isn’t worth watching. As it happens, just three days ago I fired up a Jellyfin server. I just pointed it to the NAS where my music is stored and away it went.
I did this because streaming Plex to various devices in my home just kept crashing. Sometimes the app (whether on phone, Arylic or TV) would just stop. The UI is fine, but the player/s just stop and close. Other times the players would throw errors saying that the media type could not be transcoded, but the very next time you play that track it worked fine. Casting to the TV would spuriously just stop or crash.
Before the Plex Fanbois jump in, I did extensive fault finding – I reinstalled my NAS on different hardware with different storage. I tried Plex directly installed on my NAS. I installed the Plex server on each physical server I have in my home (I have four.) I tried a dedicated bare-metal install. I changed network switches and cables, stopped using it over WiFi to devices (such as the TVs) that also had an ethernet connection that I could use, turned off all other traffic on the network so that only Plex was using it and it still did all of the things mentioned previously.
Jellyfin has worked flawlessly, so that rules out problems with my infrastructure. The only thing is that the Jellyfin app and PC UI suck, especially when it comes to creating playlists, so I lashed out and paid for the Yatse app, which also works flawlessly and has halfway decent playlist management.
Honestly, I’ve mentally written off the money I spent on the Lifetime Pass and will probably never use Plex again.
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If they cancel what I paid for and expect me to pay more, I’ll drop them instantly for Jelly, which means that no longer will I be pushing people to buy the mobile app to have access to my Plex. If they grandfather my lifetime purchase, fine. A contract was signed.
The amount of revenue they would lose from people no longer having others buy the app would, IMHO, doom Plex.
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Plex should have focused on making their product reliable. They lost market share and the community gave life to Emby and Jellyfin because it shined way above Plex because “it just worked”.
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Heavily focused on lower income people is a losing prop. People that have the money …don’t have the time. People that have the time…don’t have the money. The idea that people sensitive to milking a Plex Pass for all that it’s worth in conjunction advertising to people that have already shown they don’t have the desire to spend the disposable income on the stuff you’re advertising was a poor one from the start.
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I will also leave when lifetime is useless. But if features are added like emulating retrogames, dvb-c/s tuners, or direct add and play other streaming services in the same interface, I will gladly pay another lifetime subscription for these added features
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I’ve honestly never understood how Plex could survive with one-time purchases and providing lifetime updates for free. I know everyone wants that, but it’s not a sustainable business model without another revenue stream such as through advertising or selling other services with recurring revenue streams. Consider that most streaming services are heavily losing money, it’s a tough business to be in. People say JellyFin, and I’ve tried it, but it honestly sucks and has a long way to go to reach Plex’s polish and usability. With Plex I’d be perfectly happy paying some annual subscription fee just like every other piece of software these days. If it gives them the money to continue developing, adding features, etc., then that’s a good way to go. Sorry, but I don’t believe in the “I’m entitled to free stuff” rabble rabble.
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I still don’t understand why you push Plex or jelly, embie….. Dsvideo is the exact same thing. I’ve been using it exclusively since 2012. All devices are supported and when the internet goes down I still have my intranet.
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If Plex dares to put advertisements during MY media playback I will quit “with prejudice”.
I do not share my media with anyone outside of my home. I experimented with watching/listening to my media remotely but I have no real need to use Plex remotely.
I bought a Lifetime Plex Pass after just two months of use. I was kind of surprised that Plex would offer a “Lifetime” deal.
If it turns out that Plex wants some more money from me they will have to offer some incentives such as good discounts on long term plans (5 and 10 year) and/or useful new features.
I have a PC running Windows as my Plex server and I use a Roku TV as my primary Plex player and a Windows PC as secondary and an Google Pixel phone as tertiary player. I don’t ever foresee using a NAS as a server, so if Plex wants to eventually drop support for older platforms I don’t care too much, sorry.
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Plex vs Emby —- Emby easily my new fav, Plex has lost its way, used to be just a good media server. If I want all that other content, I’d get a ROKU box. JMHO
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It’s time for Plex to launch their own Plex-branded NAS/Server. The company can then focus their support on their own reference platform.
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Wouldn’t be surprised if they limit the “sharing” feature, because people building a “sharing business” ontop of that – or make it an additional monthly fee if you exceed a certain users you are sharing with.
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A wordplay of “lifetime products”. Its not a lifetime of user actually, but lifetime of service/program and its support/development may be stopped at any moment. In this case “lifetime” license owner stays on program/service without support or on current version without future updates (best scenario). Nice word – lifetime, but too many thing may be hidden under it, so license agreement not such a bad thing to read when you buying something virtual.
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They’re spending too much on non-core components. Changing the terms of our lifetime pass to fund those developments is something I’m not up to paying for.
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I find Synology’s own free video player and organiser that comes with every one of their Nas units perfectly acceptable. Why would I want to pay? I am getting fed up with software companies and their high pricing. And I’m sure I’m not alone. It’s just a matter of time before people turn to the freebies.
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Um, lifetime means lifetime. Nobody told them to offer it, they chose to. If they pull the rug from underneath that I’m gone. Same day. It’s ridiculous to be “okay with it”.
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On their responsiveness and communication with the community, it’s rare to see such snarky and defensive comments from a company’s official representatives to its paying customers on legitimate issues. I’ve been shocked at how rude they can be to people (including myself). That alone has me wanting to replace them. Who knows if it’s had an impact on their bottom line but it can’t be helping.
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As a purchaser of 2 lifetime plex passes I would have to say goodbye if they put plex behind a paywall , I’d simply find something else.
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As one of those early lifetime adopters I’d be okay with paying more for a platform centered more on core functionality. Like an scaling tier for sharing to more people. Or the ability to pay a premium to extend some pass features to unmanaged users.
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Maybe they should invite Elon over to take a look, he seems to have a knack for removing dead weight. Perhaps PLEX could then deliver on their core product a little better.
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ffs I only bought the lifetime pack last month. Typical that happens.
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Not related but is Mythtv still popular?
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Ive had Plex for a couple years now. Pay yearly. Its mostly for home use, and no streaming outside of the home and only one Roku and tv using it. Thus, i dont need a ton of ‘features’ i dont use. However, i would be upset if i lost some of the current plex pass features and was told i had to now pay more for them. I’m not sure what else to use other than Plex for my home-movie theater. Currently im running 4 HD’s totalling 38TB of movies.
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If they take away the Lifetime pass, why would I trust any other service pass subscription that they offer? They are unable to keep their word so better to find other services.
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No. If you purchased a LIFETIME pass, you are entitled to a lifetime as promised. This is the common scenario where a company does a thing and does it well. They’re making money, everything’s good. But they want MORE money. They want to flip into the ad revenue game.
People are already rebelling against all the platforms and the ad takeovers. Piracy is at an all time high! People do not want to pay for a service and have to watch ads!
Don’t get me started on how YouTube charges you an extra 4.95 just to move from 720p low bitrate streaming to 1080p. It’s all money grubbing and this same tug of war between businesses and users has been happening in waves over the past two decades.
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If its laying off people for crap like games integration or other service integration I’m fine with that. But if they are further shitting on the core competence of Plex: namely playing freaking video and processing metadata…..WTF.
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Plex might be going the way of Tivo. There’s simply too much competition at this point. Netflix, Hulu, Max, Prime, Disney, Pluto, etc.
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Lifetime PlexPass user here from a long time ago. Thank you for keeping us in-the-know. ????
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Autodesk had lifetime license until they decided they weren’t lifetime licence after all
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Plex management realizing diversity not working out..
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I remember when playon walked away from their lifetime members and reneged on their promise…..hopefully plex does not repeat it….
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I just bought plex lifetime about 6 months ago. I also purchase my first NAS from Synology. I would HATE to lose lifetime already… SMH
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I only just got the lifetime pass. Barely even put it to use. I don’t believe its simply ok for any company to offer a lifetime pass and then back out of it. If it’s not sustainable, they shouldn’t be allowed to advertise it. That’s false advertising. And from what I’ve seen that happens to other companies that do this, it either starts the death spiral or accelerates it. If they remove it as an option, that’s fine, but for every person that purchased a LIFETIME pass, they need to uphold that.
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I bought the lifetime pass long enough ego that it was outrageously cheap compared to what they sell it for now, and long enough that many years ago I bought some Plex merch because I felt bad about how much use I was getting with them getting no money. I wouldn’t blame them for doing something to move regular users to an ongoing revenue stream.
I’m sure plenty of people will pitch and moan about it, but if you want Plex at all then the company needs to survive…
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If they stop my life time pass I’ll be moving to Jellyfin the same day, I’m on plex because I don’t want to rent my media
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I’m out of the platform faster than the Plex team can spell O.U.T… if they cancel my lifetime (which I literally JUST bought 2 months ago).
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I signed up for my lifetime pass in 2014 – got it for $75. I can see a legal fight if they try and change it.
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Not sure how useful any of this information you’re speculating on really is. Plex is in a competitive space and obviously needs to make revenue to survive.
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Good development costs money, let’s see how this plays out, if they did something similar to Blue iris I’d be okay with it
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If they cancel lifetime memberships I don’t know how anyone could trust them again especially when better options exist.
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its gonna piss me off if they decide to cancel the lifetime pass as a lifetime sub ive just got it like in december 2022 i think or in early 2023 either way i just got it! and like 2 years ago i had unlocked my phone app prior to that id be really pissed at my wasted investment
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Although this is not postive or good news. i wouldnt really panic that much.I work for a tech company in the US and they just release 20% of the workstaff so they can boost profits.. That is all it is about. boosting profits
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This was no doubt brought on by the senseless venture into live channels/streaming. Absolutely stupid & useless. Did ANYONE – a single, solitary person – ever ask for this?
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I just hope they grandfather the lifetime PlexPass to not alienate the current user base. An extra model could be that additional enhancements ON TOP OF PlexPass could be a higher tier subscription model though. EG. New decoding updates for 4k direct streaming etc might require a subscription to maintain.
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I would suspect that they need to honor the existing lifetime customers or face a lawsuit.
They can remove the lifetime pass for any new customers but would need to either refund or honor the exisitng lifetime subscribers.
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I think it would be dangerous to drop the option moving forward.
It would disastrous to dismiss existing lifetime. A brand killer.
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So happy to have ended my plex sub a long while ago. They keep going into the worst direction at every turn
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Plex is in a dangerous environment of steaming services that do NOT want civilians to own their content. We’re back at the Napster and iTunes legal issues, what does an individual own. Plex was one of the ways people could guarantee we had a digital copy of the content we purchased, when streaming services want people to believe they can remove the content they own, just because they have a contract issue with the current IP owner. We’ll have to wait for another lawsuit and Court Judgement to guarantee people lifetime own digital content purchased, when some services close or can’t afford to keep all the content available on their server.
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Cool and thanks for the heads up. I just upgraded to lifetime.
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I think this story is overblown every tech company is laying off employees including Google, Microsoft and Facebook. Plex has clearly tried to avoid these layoffs since they have come fairly late. Most tech companies hired up too many staff when covid hit and there was a huge surge in popularity for things like Plex. Now we’re hitting a recession and companies have to tighten their belts as users do the same and cancel their subscriptions. I’m not worried about Plex at the end of the day they could stop adding new features to Plex and it does what I need right now.
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HELP! My friend, so after buying a Qnap NAS based on your awesome review. I can’t find an answer. My QNAP is in my office behind a hard-firewall with its own VPN login from the outside. I can reach the NAS via myqnapcloud via browser, but Once I’m inside the office network through VPN, I can’t “discover” the nas in the office… What am I doing wrong! I just want to setup the Qnap so it is findable with my mac while I’m inside the office network… any helpful videos? I don’t know if I have to setup a domain controller? #lostintheqnapsea
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I got to tell you, 10-years is not a lifetime.
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O got busted inside my house by rcpm in canada for hosting a plex server 3 weeks ago. Bell canada made a complaint about my internel use.
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I can’t see a problem stopping sales of “lifetime” pass – but if you sell it you better deliver – end of lifetime means you have died. Companies should not sell it if they don’t mean it – and they could have stopped selling it a long time ago.
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Ive tried watching some of the “free” stuff that plex offers and the ad interruptions are atrocious. Every 20-ish minutes i would have to watch 6-8 unskippable ads 15-30 seconds each. And if you were using Plex’s ‘watch together’ feature it would be out of sync, so one person would be forced to watch the ads while everyone waited, then the ads would start over for someone else in the party and then continue down the line until the ads had played separately for everyone. A watch party of 6 or more people would have upwards of a 10 minute break in the content every 20-30 minutes. Im not against Plex having and ad supported tier of service but it really needs to be streamlined and better optimized
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Always paid monthly and have been happy. I use both Plex and Emby at the same, monthly on both, both have pros and cons. Hopefully they come out the other end ok. Have had thousands of hours of use out of Plex. I just dont see why they are bothering with the Streaming side.
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I’m a lifetime Pass holder paid for it several years ago. Anyone think any changes made will also affect people who have already paid, or mainly just new ones wanting to pay going forward. Wanted to edit and add that I run Plex Media Server on an iMac, and the main clients are a Roku, Apple TV, and a Shield TV. Not into mobile Plex use. Also, if Plex goes away I have all my physical media I can go back to in the event Plex stops working.
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Still no idea what Plex actually does, that can’t be done with yourself for free.
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I was going to get a lifetime pass but there’s no point now. I don’t trust the company to be around.
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LIFETIME PLEX PASS can’t be just suspended. Major lawsuits would follow. It would actually mean the end of PLEX
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If the lifetime subscription goes away for existing account holders I´ll make my own streaming solution. With black jack. And hookers!
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Having used Kodi for a good few years, I tentatively moved to Plex around 4 years ago and I found it to be much better, smoother and prettier than Kodi. Kodi has unfortunately become a clunky and sometimes aggravating experience, so hearing this news regarding Plex is concerning.
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Yea, Lifetime pass should be grandfathered for anyone who already has it. If they want to change it going forward, so be it. This is the best way to retain your loyal customer base, yet still obtain funding for any new users. I would be out as well if they drop it.
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No good using lifetime pass users money as a venture capital investment, only to pull the rug. Very questionable business practice.
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Those saying they will step away from the platform if the lifetime pass is watered down just seem stupid. You have already paid and more than likely have gotten years of free service. I was an early adopter so while i would be sad to see it go away or watered down it was a ridiculous value less than a dollar a year. Now i would look elsewhere if it gets changed to where adds are introduced to my personal content. Haven’t seen anything suggesting this but that is something that would push me away.
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I wish Plex would focus on what they are good at, media management, I’ve never once used their streaming stuff and don’t plan to. They should focus on making it the best media management, they way they started. I’d be willing to pay monthly (even as a lifetime user myself) because I love the service so much, but I would have to get something meaningful and worthwhile out of that.
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I nearly fell off my chair…. they had 178 employees and $50m of revenue and they can’t make a profit? This is typical corporate greed. Loading the company up with debt to boost returns and then saying they haven’t any money at the same time as making users lives worse with ads. I moved to Jellyfin a while ago and yes it isn’t as friendly as Plex, it’s more difficult to have it working remotely but to be honest, I took the opportunity to take my server private (Plex can no longer see what content I have) and used Infuse to handle downloading to apple TV & iPad.
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Must be nice to have bought a Plex Lifetime years ago. I only purchased it for regular price less than a year ago. I’d be irate if they walked away from it. I’ve used Jellyfin prior to Plex, and it’s just not as good to use. Such is life, but what a bummer if anything were to happen. The mentioned things are 100% hypothetical in this video and is just creating type. Lets see what actually happens in the coming months.
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Thanks for the news
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The Plex team is a bunch of arrogant idiots. They refuse to listen to their users over even the most basic of annoyances. I quit using Plex after finding out that even after thousands of people asked to hide the recommended tab, they refuse to allow their users customize that aspect of Plex for no reason other than arrogance and supposedly knowing better than their users. Rest in piss won’t be missed. I use Infuse now instead.
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I wonder was synology aware of this and moving away from iGPU CPUs and moving to Ryzen CPUs because they thought there was nofuture for PLEX.
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Watch Plex pull a Filmora and take all of our lifetime passes away.
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I stopped using Plex quite a while ago. They just got too bloated with too many features that I didn’t want and in my opinion, they lost their ability to create a nice intuitive user interface.
As far as loosing a lifetime service, I lost that with another product and since then I’ve been staying sensible with just paying as I go.
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When I bought my lifetime PlexPass, I did it to (as one of their suggested reasons) “show my support”. I don’t use their video streaming and have no need for it. I mainly use it to play my stored music collection, all rips of my old CD library. I wish the Alexa (Echo) skill worked better and I wish they would add a player for the Google Nest Mini. Maybe I need to look at JellyFin.
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Not sure this video makes sense as far as the lifetime. Is this just click bait? I don’t have any facts, but I’ll make a video.
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For a good example of companies ending their “Lifetime” passes you only have to take a look at Filmora.
They did exactly that.
They experienced a major blowback from their customers, including those who didn’t have a “Lifetime” pass.
Filmora destroyed all trust in their customer base.
Many decided to make the leap to Davinci Resolve, a free and top quality alternative, that offers a paid version with additional features if desired.
It should serve as a very good lesson in how NOT to treat your customer base.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm90xW40c3A
Will Plex learn from this?
Who knows.
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Plex has been so far behind with bug fixes and getting everything to work that they have already lost the market
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Go woke, go broke. If they drive away customers and potential customers for a handful of woke, they could have checked bud light, target or Ford etc.
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Gradually changing everything to Jellyfin on my system… As you say, I just want something to watch my films. Shame really, because I have used Plex for so many years now. It just seems to be getting a bit too intrusive.
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Should I still go for a lifetime pass ? Was going to buy it this weekend or should I get into Jellyfin ? ( just got used to Plex )
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I have containers for Plex, Jellyfin, and Emby running alongside one another all pointed at the same media library so I can compare them in real time. I am a lifetime Plex pass holder, but have not bought a lifetime pass for Emby. Jellyfin is basically the only one I use these days, so if Plex wants to dig its own grave, more power to them. There’s no way in hell I would have paid for a lifetime Plex pass if Jellyfin in its current form existeda t the time and I had been aware of it, so there’s certainly no way I’d give them additional money.
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Life time = life time
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If you think that Plex is free, try simply putting in a wrong gateway address as a test. As soon as the Plex service can’t reach “their” servers the product is dead. I can see the NAS “my” movies are sitting on, I can ping the NAS “my” movies are siting on, I can access everything else on the NAS “my movies” are sitting on, I just can’t access the Plex service on the NAS “my” movies are sitting on. If this is what you consider free then lets talk, I have some deals for you. Because of this I have been moving over to Jellyfin. While not perfect and certainly lacking some of what I got used to with Plex, I can at least access “my ” content.
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As a Lifetime PlexPass user, I will sadly have to leave if they decide to take away features or put them behind an additional paywall. Hoping this worst case scenario is avoided.
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They can indeed legally cancel the lifetime subscription. “A perpetual subscription that shall remain in effect for so long as Plex offers the Plex solution or until it is canceled by you in accordance with the Terms of Service.”
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Why not simply cancel the Plex Pass purchase without revoking access for existing Lifetime Plex Pass users?
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I’ll just go to Jellyfin or Emby. I have a lifetime pass. I knew them adding FAST was the beginning of the end for Plex.
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I don’t think taking away or watering down the lifetime pass would be a good move for them. If this happens I would go elsewhere, and as a consequence I would also cease recommending the product. A lack of positive recommendations never does any product any good and I image plenty of others would feel the same.
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Imagine imagine. Jellyfin stays on top
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I’ve had a lifetime plexpass since 2015. I didn’t need to but I wanted to support them. I currently have plex installed on my Synology 3617xs. I don’t stream outside of the home , if Plex wanted to try to monitize what I already have I would just revert to synology video station . I don’t use plex for anything else but local streaming, I do use freeve, Tubi and Pluto but Plex seems to be more redundant so I just don’t use it for that.
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Perplexing?…
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Jellyfin babbyyyyy
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Not grandfathering in lifetime = class-action
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Been using Plex for years. I really like it. Hope everything goes ok with them
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