I was just forwarded this someone in my household who watches our server. That's it folks. I've been a hold out for a long time, but this is honestly it.
They want me to pay to stream content that I bought from my hardware transcoded also on my hardware.
I'll say it. As of today, I say Plex is dead. Luckily I've been setting up Jellyfin, I guess it's time to make it production ready.
Edit I have a Plex Pass. More comments saying "Just buy a plex pass" are seriously not getting it. I have a Plex Pass and my users are still getting this.
Setup for remote access by the host is more work, ofc. Remote access on users end can be more difficult depending on how the host sets things up.
Most popular freebie approach seems to be tailscale VPN. Which requires remote users to connect through the Tailscale VPN. And for the host the free Tailscale option has a cap of 3 users. There is probably a learning curve and perhaps frustration for a low-comfort-with-tech type person.
Requires some money but I think the easiest remote user experience is Cloud Flare. This is what my brother does, so I haven't seen it from his end, but on my end it is very easy to access as a user.
Both have so many help guides online, Tailscale or Cloud Flare.
I might be missing something, by why couldn't they just directly connect to my machine via my domain name?