I moved on to jellyfin after I found out the hard way Plex servers need to authenticate for use. I'm sure by now there are ways to set up offline authentication but I already didn't like the idea of paying monthly to stream my own content from my own machine. It just didn't make sence to me. Jellyfin isn't perfect, or as flashy as Plex, but it works, looks fine, and its free, not counting a much deserved donation to the devs .
this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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Yeah, my lifetime Jellyfin subscription wasn’t quite that much, thankfully. 😆
remote streaming rarely works for me so I won't be losing anything.
So basically.. this is a blatant cash grab, and a nearly 200% one depending on the level of service you pay/paid for. Wonder how long it will be before the lifetime pass is discontinued and everyone gets forcibly moved over to a monthly subscription model
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I don’t like it, but it’s a pragmatic decision.
Hosting for a simple website can be as little as a few bucks a month. That’s easy for any project to absorb, even if they are open-source with no one pulling a paycheque.
Streaming requires high-performance, high-bandwidth machines that cost anywhere from several dozen dollars to several hundred dollars a month. You build a resilient high-availability network, and you could easily be looking at several tens of thousands of dollars a month.
That isn’t easy to absorb, even for a for-profit company with clearly-defined revenue streams.
Some people want everything for free, but free doesn’t pay the bills.
Full disclosure: I don’t use the streaming feature. I prefer to grab actual copies to drop onto my NAS. I also don’t share to friends and family, as I am the only one I know of who uses Plex.
All those resources and costs are borne by the person hosting the video, NOT Plex.
Streaming requires high-performance, high-bandwidth machines that cost anywhere from several dozen dollars to several hundred dollars a month. You build a resilient high-availability network, and you could easily be looking at several tens of thousands of dollars a month.
Are you under the impression that Plex uploads the movie files to their servers and then transcodes them there, or something?
And the hard work happens on your own hardware. All Plex's servers are doing is acting as a signaling server, but no media or routed through Plex's servers.
It depends on if you use the "relay" feature. If your server is accessible from the outside it shouldn't be using this though.
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Plex actually does have streaming services. The ones we've never asked for. And live tv.
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sometimes good software is worth paying for
Big facts. Even the FOSS software, I buy the premium or donate a bit to it. It only feels right. I couldn't imagine making something millions of people count on and not throw them SOMETHING. Especially when its such a good experience.
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I've been meaning to set up a homeserver with plex recently but will defnitely go for jellyfin now that I read this thread.