sometimes good software is worth paying for

On one hand, it looks like this only applies to streaming from a remote server where neither the server owner or the user has Plex pass, so lifetime holders or committed server operators with a subscription can continue to provide access to all our non paying friends. It isn’t explicit whether non-paying users people who port forward / do reverse proxying themselves are affected but it sounds like they are, which is utter BS since direct connections hardly cost Plex anything.

It is however nice that they’re trading this for getting rid of the mobile unlock BS - it was always awkward explaining to friends that they could watch anywhere except on their phone unless they paid $5.

On the other hand, one notable side effect is that all non-lan streaming will now be associated with a paying server owner or a paying user, which makes it impossible to use Plex to share pirated media without a user on either end giving up PII / payment information. I have a gut feeling that this is an extension of the previous piracy crackdown on OVH(?) hosted servers meant to ensure they have the identity of all users who may be engaged in selling access.

Overall, yeah another reason to move to JF. I paid for lifetime more than a decade ago so I’m going to keep using Plex until my non-paying friends start to have issues, but I really hope this pushes more investment into JF apps. I really need a good android TV app that supports server transcoding (IIUC findroid’s beta TV builds are direct stream only).

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. More on that later in this update.

I was worrying about this change because my Plex server provides free streaming for several of my friends and family and I didn’t want them to have to start paying for it. The whole point was to get them away from Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, etc.

But this sounds like, since I’m already a Plex Pass subscriber, my remote viewers will still be able to access my stuff for free. Do I have that right? Because if so, this change is just business as usual for me.

I dumped Plex years ago even though I paid for it. Too many issues with it. Constantly losing movie folders, unable to stream to the device I wanted to watch on, wrong codec, wrong sound, etc, etc. I gave up. I’m sure it worked fine for most, but it got to be a pain. Switched to Jellyfin and a DDNS address and have had zero problems since. And it’s free.

I can understand new features being behind a fee, but this is putting old, old capabilities behind a paywall. Hmmm…

This with a recent decision to remove watch together sort of eliminates the whole reason I would have tried Plex so many years ago.

I’m a fan of Plex (it’s worked for me) and understand the Jellyfin crowd too. I’m worried about who is calling the shots at the moment. They aren’t aligning with their users.

I absolutely love that Emby is such a third thought that they don’t even get a mention anymore. They fucked their loyal users over so much that they don’t even get mentioned anymore. Can’t wait for plex to suffer the same fate

I’ve said it for years that Plex is shit because of their license and the fact that you have no control everyone said no it’s fine it’s my media fucking look at it now

remote streaming rarely works for me so I won’t be losing anything.

Judging by the rest of the thread I’m going to get downvoted for this, but what the hell:

I’m sure I’ll switch to Jellyfin eventually but I tried it out a few weeks ago to see what all the hype was about and it just… wasn’t great. It was difficult to setup, with way too many overly-complicated settings, and then it refused to play one of the two test files I tried. Like it or not there’s a reason that Plex is the dominant player in the game, and a large part of that reason is that it verges on plug-and-play for simplicity of both setup and use.

Yes, it sucks that they’re removing remote streaming for free users, but I imagine there’s a significant chunk of users who don’t know or care how to properly open their server up to the world and are relying on the Plex proxies for their streams (which happens entirely in the background), and those aren’t going to be cheap to run. Maybe putting them behind a paywall will provide the resources to make them faster.

I did buy a lifetime pass last time they announced a price hike; it’s honestly paid for itself many times over, and I’ve been encouraging other users I know to do the same before this next one, because yes, it is a significant hike this time around. That said, while I wouldn’t pay monthly for it, I do still feel like the lifetime pass is tremendous value for such a polished product. It’s a shame they’ve had to do it at all, but I don’t begrudge them for it.

Huh, I was somewhat excited about the elimination of the playback limit for mobile apps (we are in 2025 ffs!) and then re-read that this will be only applicable for the subpar preview version once it is released… Which doesn’t fucking has the watch together feature lmao.

The only good news in a nutshell is that I am still a Plex Pass Lifetime User, so in a nutshell I don’t get good news lol.

Yeah, my lifetime Jellyfin subscription wasn’t quite that much, thankfully. 😆

Seems reasonable. I’m a lifetime Plex pass holder, so it won’t affect me or the one person I let access my server lol

Just saying…

As a plex pass lifetime user, this doesn’t change anything for me.

I am, however, blown away that the price went from $75 CDN to $350 CDN over the last 10 years!! That’s just insane!

Wireguard so you are always seen as being on the local network. This bit of assholery is easily defeated.