this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.

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[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Dammit, my friend just said he would give me access to his file server, all I have to do is install Plex. Presumably this announcement means that will become impossible without a subscription.

[–] Critical_Thinker@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I think most people probably have a lifetime plex pass for their plex server, or they are using alternative servers.

Lifetime pass grants licenses to all clients, at least it used to unless this changes that.

My server has many users and nobody has paid anything aside from my original buy of $120 in 2019. So far that comes out to about $1.67/mo for unlimited users and unlimited updates.

I'm not saying I really like the updates though. I think they should have remained slim, but someone is trying to make more and more money by branching out into bullshit beyond private media serving. All that trash should be separate products that are divorced from the private media server / client product.

All this being said, check out Jellyfin, little reason to use plex over it for private media but it has some limitations if you need subtitles or cannot relocate file structures.

[–] ifItWasUpToMe@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 months ago

All it means is you can’t go through their servers. If you setup a different way to access your network (VPN) it’ll still work.

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[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 30 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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

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[–] Buske@lemmy.world 32 points 2 months ago

Another company fucked by executives.

[–] TedZanzibar@feddit.uk 25 points 2 months ago (6 children)

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.

[–] LeFantome@programming.dev 4 points 2 months ago

I have a lifetime Plex account but have not used it in two years. I use Jellyfin. Obviously opinions vary.

At home, I have FireTV and Roku devices. I stream remotely to iPhones and tablets using Twingate.

[–] brot@feddit.org 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It was difficult to setup

I'm not really sure here - I just did the setup and you literally paste one command into your terminal. There you'll find the Jellyfin IP and port, visit it in a browser and you'll get a simple wizard which guides you into setting up your libraries. Which also is not complicated, you just select a folder where your stuff is?

[–] TedZanzibar@feddit.uk 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Libraries were simple enough, sure, but have you delved into the full settings? Trying to figure out the correct settings for QuickSync hardware acceleration was a mission in and of itself and there's very little guidance on what any of the options mean or do. I don't have the container running right now or I'd provide examples, but In Plex it's a single checkbox.

I'm sure Jellyfin will get there and it's a cool project, but it's fairly obvious that it's written by hobbyists, for hobbyists. Meanwhile Plex excels at just working straight out of the box.

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[–] Revilo62@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's how I'm feeling about all these "TImE FoR evErYoNE tO swITCh To JElLyfiN" comments. You mean the program that also doesn't support this functionality out of the box?

[–] beastlykings@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Exactly. I'd love to use jellyfin, but it's just not feasible

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