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.

    • dormedas@lemmy.dormedas.com
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      25 days ago

      Alright, so I have had Jellyfin installed for years now, but my primary issue is that most devices myself or my users use lack official, readily-available clients. For example, the Samsung TV app is a developer mode install. Last I looked, nobody has put a build into the store.

      I really want to use Jellyfin, but I feel like my users simply can’t. I’m interested in others’ experiences here that could help.

        • BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml
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          25 days ago

          I give all my friends the choice between Plex and jellyfin (I run both containers side by side pointed to the same media folders) and they all invariably choose Plex. I think it has a lot to do with the jellyfin UI, and I think an overhaul like jellyfin-vue or something that looks like findroid needs to happen in order for jellyfin to really appeal to regular people.

      • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        A Chromecast TV device might fill your gap. There is a jellyfin android TV build in the app store and it works with every TV. Just costs about 50 dollarydoos

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            25 days ago

            True and while they are both enshitifying their services. Somehow in this one area Google seems to be going slower. And making slightly less bonehead moves

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        Yeah.

        Jellyfin is spectacular for LAN usage on two computers. Once you start using devices (because, you know, that is what people tend to plug into their TVs…) or going on travel, it rapidly becomes apparent that it just isn’t a competitor.

        Hell, a quick google suggests jellyfin STILL doesn’t have caching of media for offline viewing. Plex’s works maybe 40% of the time but… 40% is still higher than 0%.

        I have a lifetime pass for Plex and encourage anyone who even kind of cares to get one next time it is on sale (or shortly before the scheduled price hike). I have tried Jellyfin a few times over the years and… it is basically exactly what I hate with FOSS “alternatives”. It isn’t an alternative in the slightest but people insist on talking it up because they want it to be and that just makes people less willing to try genuinely good alternatives.


        To put it bluntly, Plex is an “offline netflix” as it were. Jellyfin is a much better version of smbstation and all the other stuff we used to stream porn to our playstations back in the day.

        • gdog05@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          Jellyfin allows you to download whatever you want to your local device. But in a world of streaming, it seems to be a much smaller usecase. I take my tablet camping with me all the time, download some shows via Jellyfin and watch via Jellyfin. Maybe you’re using the term “caching” differently from the use case, but if local files is what you’re after, it absolutely does it. Just click download in a couple of different locations.

          • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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            25 days ago

            Yeah, I don’t know what that dude’s on about. My kids download stuff from jellyfin to their tablets all the time for road trips.

          • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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            Did they? Or is that still the old hack of “just download the raw file. Your tablet is just a computer”?

            Because I didn’t see it advertised on the main web page and a quick google got me to https://github.com/jellyfin/Swiftfin/discussions/364 which is open and abandoned tickets for the ios apps.


            https://forum.jellyfin.org/t-offline-downloads?pid=16373#pid16373 suggests it is also in the same boat for android. You can find workarounds but they aren’t using jellyfin.

            Which is “fine”. I watched WAY too many movies over the years with VLC on a laptop. But… why are we using a shim to treat a library as a streaming service in that case? Which gets back to Jellyfin just not actually being a Plex alternative for the majority of users.

            • MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de
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              25 days ago

              Oh no! Please GOD, anything but tHe rAw fIlE!!

              Seriously though, wtf did I just read? That can’t possibly be your real stance, can it?

              • BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml
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                25 days ago

                Half of my collection is DTS HD MA or TrueHD and many have HDR. Offline caching with transcoding is an essential feature if we want jellyfin to pull ahead. Berating people who are pointing out areas of improvement is not a winning strategy.

                • MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de
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                  25 days ago

                  I run ffmpeg on my phone. Alternately, I could shrink the file on my server and then download it without much trouble. You’re in a vanishingly small subset of users who know enough to care about file-size and know what can be done about it, but can’t be bothered to do it themselves.

              • MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
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                25 days ago

                This is a huge problem. The blueray remux might be 80 gigs. Most children’s devices will already be filled with other crap.

                • MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de
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                  25 days ago

                  I run ffmpeg on my phone. Alternately, I could shrink the file on my server and then download it without much trouble. You’re in a vanishingly small subset of users who know enough to care about file-size and know what can be done about it, but can’t be bothered to do it themselves.

                  I was avoiding suggesting getting more storage, but it sounds like in your case, keeping a 720p x265 version of each file(~1gb per movie) on-hand would cost you nothing.

            • gdog05@lemmy.world
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              25 days ago

              You might be right, it might play in an external player. I don’t recall that or didn’t notice. We’re a few months from the last camping season. If it does play in an external player, seems like an inconvenience vs a dealbreaker, but I get it. We all have our things. I would argue that it’s maybe a big deal for you and not a majority of users. Maybe a small but focused minority.

            • anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz
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              25 days ago

              As I was curious, Findroid gives you an android client that allows offline mode and downloading/playing/removing movies from the client.
              Seems Infuse Pro (paid) version also has support for it if you’re an iPhone user.
              edit: I see the discussion regarding filesizes and I believe that Findroid is downloading the raw file in the background, so for those that wish for smaller transcoded versions in the cache it isn’t a solution. I don’t own any apple devices so can’t tell how Infuse handles it.

        • superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          25 days ago

          As someone who has attempted to switch to Jellyfin a few times now, I have to agree. Its a great project and my switch would have been successful if it was only me using it. But between my parents streaming remotely and my kids, its not even remotely close to what Plex offers currently.

      • hperrin@lemmy.ca
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        I had the same experience with my parents. They have a Samsung TV and the Jellyfin experience was awful.

        I ended up getting them a little N100 mini pc and installed Bazzite and the Jellyfin app from Flathub. You can configure it so it knows it’s on a TV, and responds to keyboard controls. I got them a remote from a company called Pepper Jobs that gives keyboard input and now they have a great experience with it. Even my mom, who’s a big technophobe, loves it.

        My dad also has an LG TV in his workshop that doesn’t have a working Jellyfin app (cause it’s ten years old), and he uses the Jellyfin app for his Xbox on that one.

      • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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        I love Jellyfin, but I always find something that I have a problem with when trying it, for example it has weak searching, tagging, and TV show identification compared to Plex.

        I tried using it even as recent as yesterday for some searching and tagging, but it’s searching, tagging, and even TV show identification has problems and is weak in comparison to Plex. I couldn’t mass-tag certain videos which was annoying for me, I had to do it one-by-one and it ended up taking a long time, that was frustrating. Also, tags don’t show up in searches anymore because it hurts performance apparently. With that said, maybe Plex has the same limitation, but it doesn’t mean that Jellyfin has to. They are open-source, and they can be better than Plex, and in many ways they already are, but I keep running into pain points with how I want to use it, and it does feel a bit unfortunate. With that said, I’m a developer too, so I know it’s not always that simple. It’s just in some ways it feels less “complete” than Plex.

        I’m still really pleased with Jellyfin though, and especially the future potential of it.

      • Kekin@lemy.lol
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        25 days ago

        I can speak from my experience with an Apple TV, the application “Infuse” works amazing with a jellyfin server. Though the application is essentially $1 month subscription, but works across all your apple devices, if you have any. I think it’s worth it.

        Additionally, the official app for Android TV worked pretty well when I last tried it on an Nvidia Shield

        • SirSamuel@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          I’ve got a Samsung TV and am nearly a complete Luddite (in the colloquial sense).

          I managed to install the Jellyfin app on my TV just by following the step by step instructions on a website

      • blue_skull@lemmy.world
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        I use Jellyfin client on my new Samsung TV via a Google TV dongle (ONN tv, $25 at Walmart). Seems to work well.

        My only complaint is the stream volume has been very low after a recent update. Downsampling helps but seems like it shouldn’ t be necessary.

      • Chris@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        I’ve never had an issue with the apps. It’s on my Chromecast and my android phone, and I typically stream to the TV from my phone.

        My only issue is that they require a real cert (which is good tbh) and I am having trouble getting letsencrypt working due to my isp blocking port 80 and me dragging my feet getting DNS working

      • lori@lemmy.zip
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        25 days ago

        The only major pain point I had with Jellyfin was getting it on my Samsung TV yes. It is absolutely not a good recommendation for people with Samsungs unless they’re willing to get their hands very dirty. Now, once I got the app side loaded on there, it works perfectly well, but the process sucked ass.

    • sasquash@sopuli.xyz
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      25 days ago

      any recommendations to get it to work remotely? the good thing about plex was it was easy to set up, but the quality was medicore.

        • gdog05@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          I used a Cloudflare tunnel for security (no open ports) but that’s for people with limited tech ability mostly. Everyone else I’ve got connected with a tailscale node.

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            25 days ago

            Careful with that I think it’s against their TOS to do that due to the large volumes of data video streaming takes.

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            25 days ago

            I’m in the process of moving houses at the moment. But I’ve already got a nice PC put together to host a mess of services. Should be “fun” LOL

        • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
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          25 days ago

          That works but is pretty insecure as you have nothing protecting your server outside of a basic password.

          • jayb151@piefed.social
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            25 days ago

            I’m pleading full ignorance here. Because I opened the port for JF, doesn’t that mean the only thing exposed would be my jellyfin? I thought having the rest of my ports closed would not allow access to the rest of my system?

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      25 days ago

      I’ve been testing out jellyfin for the last couple months but it doesn’t really fill the void of this specific feature that’s being locked behind a pay wall. If anyone has good recommendations for securely and reliably hosting jellyfin behind SSL and auth with email password resets where I don’t have to worry about it as much as Plex.

      I use jellyfin locally but for a handful of remote clients I have I may well block off their access they’re not going to be able to figure out my hand spun services and wall of text.

          • BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml
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            25 days ago

            In case this helps as a reference point, I use a $5 digital ocean droplet as my Plex and Jellyfin reverse proxy and it seems to handle the traffic of 3-5 simultaneous streams just fine. I use Haproxy in tcp mode (so no http interpreting, just passing packets) in an attempt to keep the CPU load minimal and just make it a pure I/O task.

            • kate@lemmy.uhhoh.com
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              25 days ago

              i’m fairly familiar with reverse proxies and how to set them up, but I’m mostly worried about the monthly bandwidth limits here. especially with hetzner’s recently lowered limits. since I have a life time plex pass i might be able to hold off from switching until I figure something else out, at least.

              • BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml
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                25 days ago

                Gotcha, I’ve never actually considered the bandwidth limits. It looks like digitalocean includes 1TB per month and I used 242GB last month. If I ever get close to the limit I will just spin up another droplet. I don’t think I would even need to load balance unless the first one is struggling since the bandwidth allowance across all droplets is pooled together.

                If you aren’t already using a reverse proxy, then do you currently just port forward or use the Plex relay? The only reason I use one is because of CGNAT. Before I moved to a place with only CGNAT I port forwarded for both Plex and Jellyfin.

                • kate@lemmy.uhhoh.com
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                  25 days ago

                  I just port forward right now, so Plex’s system is basically an overpowered dynamic dns. I guess my next option is to self host a dynamic dns on a numbered xyz domain (yk the $1/yr ones)

        • Dempf@lemmy.zip
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          25 days ago

          You can connect Jellyfin to an SSO provider. It still needs work, and client support is lacking. Ideally I think it maybe should be built in rather than a plug-in (would definitely encourage more client support). But it exists.

          https://github.com/9p4/jellyfin-plugin-sso

          Feature request for oidc/sso:

          https://features.jellyfin.org/posts/230/support-for-oidc-oauth-sso

          As it stands, you could enable both the SSO and LDAP plugins, and let users do password resets entirely through your auth provider.

          Basically, this is all stuff that comes with Plex out-of-the-box, but you sort of have to glue it together yourself with Jellyfin, and it’s not yet in an ideal state. Plex is much much easier to configure. I wouldn’t allow yourself to believe that Plex doing all this for you will make you totally secure through – there’s been multiple incidents with their auth, and IIRC the LastPass attacker pivoted from a weak Plex install. Just food for thought.

          • anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz
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            25 days ago

            Ah, that’s good to know!
            My jellyfin server is only available over vpn (and locally) so I haven’t much looked into beefing up the security on the jellyfin server itself.

      • curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        25 days ago

        Authentik + jellyfin SSO plugin?

        I haven’t tried it out personally, but I use authentik, for that you can just create a password policy, then add a new stage for identification (just make sure to add the email field), and an email stage, then create a flow.

        More work on your end than paying someone else obviously.

    • merthyr1831@lemmy.ml
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      25 days ago

      Before now I was on the sunk cost fallacy of not wanting to teach my extended family how to use Jellyfin instead of plex but after this I’m already mid-way through setting up a Jellyfin docker container on my server and I only found out an hour ago

    • kingthrillgore@lemmy.ml
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      25 days ago

      Jellyfin is still way behind Plex in general performance but I keep a VM of it running and updated, for when the day comes that Plex is absolutely worthless.

      Which at this rate, is, well, we’re getting there.

    • Limonene@lemmy.world
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      Jellyfin depends on proprietary Microsoft .NET, even on Linux.

      It’s still better than Plex and Emby, which are fully proprietary, and have no source code. But I will stick with sshfs with kodi, and nginx plus mpv for now.

    • Obinice@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      Alas my TV (LG WebOS 2) doesn’t have an application for Jellyfin, or I’d have switched years ago :-(

      • gdog05@lemmy.world
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        24 days ago

        Is there an emby app available or Kodi? The base of Jellyfin should work in either. Plug and play as far as I’m aware with maybe some issues for certain versions.

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    25 days ago

    I’m not pirating a bunch of shows just to pay Plex for the privilege of watching it.

    • Boomer Humor Doomergod@lemmy.world
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      This might be what it takes to at least get me to install it.

      Do they live well together with the same shared media library?

      Also, are there audiobook clients for Jellyfin?

      • myrmidex@slrpnk.net
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        I found audiobooks to be kind of awkward on jellyfin. I’m now running Audiobookshelf for all my audiobooks, radio shows and podcasts. Together with the Lissen app on Android, it works very nicely!

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        I’ve heard rumors that they do play well together, but that’s people running it in docker with a “read-only” flag set for the content folder, with metadata saved in the config folder

        I’ve used the Jellyfin app to listen to audio books, but for my purposes, it’s easier to run the separate client/server Audiobookshelf.

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            25 days ago

            I’m fully Dockerized (well, uhh… Podmanized) and I’m dual-wielding Plex and Jellyfin. Runs smoothly and both only have read to the content. All management of the media is handled by the *arr stack anyway. I even set up a volume for Plex to throw conversions into that Jellyfin can’t see. I’m currently personally using Jellyfin and I’m waiting for Jellyfin to be good enough (or Plex bad enough…) for the users I share with to switch over.

            I can definitely recommend that setup.

        • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
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          I’ve had Plex and Emby (what Jellyfin was forked from) running alongside one a other for years now on Windows with zero issues. They shouldn’t have any effect on one another.

      • nul9o9@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        My Jellyfin and Plex containers were able to use the same locations for media.

        • SirSamuel@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          I installed Plex before learning I’d have to pay for any of the functionality I was looking for. Installed Jellyfin and used the Plex folders lol

      • Clusterfck@lemmy.sdf.org
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        25 days ago

        I’ve had Jellyfin and Plex running using the same media directory for a couple years now. I think I had to make a couple small changes for things like seasons of a TV show to show up correctly, but nothing incredibly difficult. Definitely worth setting up and playing with periodically so when you do finally get sick of Plex, you’re ready to just switch.

        Only thing I use Plex for exclusively now is when I’m flying, Plex has the Netflix style download option and Jellyfin just downloads the video file. I like Plex’s way better just from personal preference.

      • anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz
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        25 days ago

        I haven’t used Plex myself but Jellyfin doesn’t create any kind of meta files in the library folders. If that is true for Plex as well then I don’t see why it would be a problem to point them at the same shared library.

        • Boomer Humor Doomergod@lemmy.world
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          Plex stores its metadata in a special folder, and I’ve got the *arr stack managing the actual media files, so I think I can run them in parallel.

          Looks like I’ve got a project for the weekend! Jebediah’s just gonna have to wait to go to Jool.

      • anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz
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        I didn’t enjoy using Jellyfin for audiobooks, on my android I use the Jellyfin client to download the book I wanna listen to and then I use AudioAnchor for listening to it.

      • merthyr1831@lemmy.ml
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        25 days ago

        Of you use docker plex and jellyfin arent gonna be messing with your media unless you delete/modify them within the respective clients (but then again thats what *arr is for)

  • RonnyZittledong@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    I have a lifetime plex pass so this does not really affect me but I expect the trend of degrading experience to continue. I would have switched to Jellyfin a long time ago but I am dreading contacting everyone I share with and getting them migrated.

    • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com
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      25 days ago

      Same boat here. I chose Plex because the apps were everywhere. Smart TV’s, phones, web…

      I can switch, no problem. I don’t want to have to teach my parents a new app. OMFG!

      • corroded@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        This is also true of Jellyfin, though. I have apps on my Windows PC, my Android phone, multiple Nvidia Shield boxes on my TVs, plus the web interface if I need it.

        I switched over from Plex several years ago, and while it takes a bit more time to configure, compatibility for clients seems just as good for Jellyfin as it is for Plex.

        Most importantly, Jellyfin is strictly client/server, no “cloud” bullshit and no remote account is required; I don’t want Plex phoning home with a list of the media on my file server.

        • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com
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          25 days ago

          Jellyfin certainly took off. Great for them. It just wasn’t polished or an option when I set things up way back then.

      • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip
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        25 days ago

        its actually the sole reason why i ended up paying for plex myself. its not because on ME that i ended up using plex, its moreso everyone else that I want to give my server access to with the least amount of hurdles that made me ultimately go that route.

  • dmtalon@infosec.pub
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    25 days ago

    Glad I bought the Plex Pass like 13 years ago. While I understand everyone seems to think everything should be free, I’m sure your boss wishes you worked for free too, but the world doesn’t work that way.

    I’m OK supporting products I use , and Plex is an example of this for me. It was a well spend $75 in 2013

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      Nah. Cool that you think that, though. The moment they started charging for what was a free service, they lost me. I have gigabit internet. The only reason i used their service to begin with was ease of use.

      Hot take but maybe everything doesn’t need to be an infinitely expanding business. Just imagine for a second that it’s fine for something to just break even, pay for the few mainteners salaries and not expand the business at all ever. I know that I just uttered the cardinal evil under capitalism but fucking seriously. The primary userbase of plex is pirates. The whole incentive is not having to pay for a streaming service. Charging money for it is just torpedoing your entire userbase. The entire appeal of Plex was it not charging money.

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        25 days ago

        Yah and I still bought a plexpass and then left Plex. Do I care no I got my money worth. Software costs money how would they continue to developed it if not getting paid?

      • TheWilliamist@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        I don’t know when or how, but it seems in my lifetime we went from that. Having corporations that just did something well and left it at that to this idiotic grow or die mentality that seems to be fueled by investor ROI.

      • dmtalon@infosec.pub
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        25 days ago

        So, you’ve got option. You can just roll your own, or go to jellyfin.

        I’m one of the first people to complain about the incessant need to grow 20% a year to appease shareholders and how unsustainable that is. But I also realize as I said, stuff cost money and “just breaking even” will also grow in cost every year with everything else, so… Even in that perfect world you were describing, there would be an increase in cost applied to that project.

        Much like I am sure you expect at the very least a cost of living raise each year. I’m also guessing you’re glad your paycheck to bills ratio isn’t what it was 20y ago. (or I can say, that for me that is true). I’m pretty happy my discretionary money is more now than it was then. I bet those developers also want that same thing.

      • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        No, it’s still wrong.

        We have ways to do NAT traversal and hole punching on consumer routers. Failing that, UPnP and port forwarding exist. Or, god forbid, IPv6.

        In the rare case that literally none of those are an option, they would have to use TURN to relay between an intermediary. That is a reasonable case to ask the user to pay for their bandwidth usage, but they don’t have to be greedy fuckers by making everyone pay for it.

        This is enshittification and corporate greed. Nothing more, nothing less.

        • Fluffy Kitty Cat@slrpnk.net
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          25 days ago

          Reading about NAT Traversal and all that nonsense makes me want to start out my own ISP and we just configure things to be good because the corporate assholes clearly haven’t. Imagine how much better things could be if hosting stuff from your home internet connection was just a thing you could do with no drama

          • Melmi
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            25 days ago

            If anything is to blame for that, it’s the lack of momentum behind IPv6. We’re out of IPv4, so NAT is inevitable, and IPv6 doesn’t have enough inertia for single-stack to be viable (certainly wouldn’t be described as “no drama” at least).

            • Fluffy Kitty Cat@slrpnk.net
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              25 days ago

              The fact that people still try to do bullshit like Nat on IPv6 is completely crazy. It’s like they’ve never heard of the idea of a stateful firewall and just want to recreate bad old patterns again, combine with the fact that many internet service providers still don’t allow you to host anything from your home connection. We need to fix all of that of an IPv6 first Network. Ipv4 is several layers of exhausted by now so it should be considered deprecated but for some reason isn’t

              • Melmi
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                25 days ago

                A big part of IPv4’s persistence I think is that people insist that IPv6 is complicated, but then refuse to learn it or think outside their IPv4-brain. It’s just different enough that it’s easier to stay in v4, even if it requires a million hackjob fixes to keep around.

                • Fluffy Kitty Cat@slrpnk.net
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                  25 days ago

                  I haven’t really messed around if the intricacies of computer networking but the only downside I personally encountered to use an IPv6 is that it’s a bit harder to memorize the IP addresses but I usually copy paste those anyways so it doesn’t matter. People use names for stuff anyways so why use bare ips?

        • Evotech@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          They make a product. It’s not just the cost of infrastructure.

          They have developers and other employees

          • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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            25 days ago

            And this isn’t a new feature they’re adding. Remote streaming was already implemented and generally available to users.

            I don’t discount there being a cost in maintaining code over time, but it’s not as though they have to spend any significant employee time on improving it. They already support UPnP and NAT-PMP to have the clients connect directly to the self-hosted servers.

            It would be nice if they added NAT hole punching on top of that, but it’s evidently good enough to work as-is in its current form. If they’re not even running relays to support more tricky networks (which the linked support article has no mention of), keeping this feature free costs them literally nothing extra.

    • non_burglar@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      Your view unfortunately doesn’t show you how shitty the unpaid experience has become. XBMC used to be a good product. Since becoming Plex, now we have:

      • no local hardware accel
      • no HDR
      • panels that look like local videos that trick you into switching to a paid app
      • rearranged home screen after some updates
      • no downloads on remote devices
      • and now I’ll lose the ability to share streaming with my kid, who lives many cities away

      If this were clear from the outset , no one would be upset. But pulling back features Plex at one time promised “forever” (remote streaming), is complete rug-pull bullshit.

      You can enjoy that warm and fuzzy reverse-fomo feeling now, but you should know that they’ll start limiting your paid experience eventually.

    • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
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      25 days ago

      I fucking hope to god they don’t go full enshittification and decide to revoke the lifetime licenses.

    • ddash@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      I mean, I’m with you, it is nice to support something you use, financially. But you made a one time payment 12 years ago. Your money is certainly not there anymore, they used it and paid something with it. I don’t know, it just sounds like a really weird take reading your post. But maybe its me whose weird, I would prefer one time payment over subscriptions too.

      • Mniot@programming.dev
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        25 days ago

        Lots of businesses have and do exist without a subscription model. I’m fond of the Paprika Recipe Manager, for example, which asks a one-time payment for each major version. All commercial software worked this way in the 80s.

        • Auli@lemmy.ca
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          25 days ago

          Did you notice what you said there each major version. Plex has been rolling releases for years. Maybe they should have done Plex 1 2 etc. yes software has been that way forever but you would pay for a version and then a year later pay for another one. Now people expect to pay once and get upgrades forever.

          • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
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            25 days ago

            Now people expect to pay once and get upgrades forever.

            Because they’re called “lifetime passes” voluntarily offered by the company. It seems weird to act like people are being entitled about this or that their $75-$120 one-time payment is meaningless compared to someone who’s only paid $5 or worse using it for free.

          • Mniot@programming.dev
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            25 days ago

            Sure, I’m not saying Plex has to do a single-payment model. Just that it’s a think that’s been done successfully (and for longer than Plex has existed). Everyone’s pushing subscription models so hard that it’s easy to think “this is the only possible way that anything can work”.

        • Chewy@discuss.tchncs.de
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          25 days ago

          I wonder how much money Plex still makes through their lifetime purchases. Is it that they were struggling and then made bad business decisions with the aim on increasing revenue (ad supported video on demand)? Or was it the other way around?

          In the 80s new systems usually came with new OSs, which required porting software it. Thus a lifetime license was practically limited.

          I wouldn’t be as opposed to a subscription model if it was cheaper and they focused on their actual core product, not all the other fluff around. 5€/m is a bit much given they don’t pay for my bandwidth. And if they didn’t store my media info, history etc…

          • Mniot@programming.dev
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            25 days ago

            I have no idea how well it works in reality, but I can imagine the Lifetime Pass being a good business model for them: only the most enthusiastic user will pay for 3 years up front (lifetime currently costs 3x the yearly). So when they get a Lifetime pass they’re getting 3 years paid up front and an evangelist who will probably tell their friends about Plex. If that Lifetime subscriber gets even one person to sign up for a yearly sub who otherwise wouldn’t have, then Plex came out ahead.

      • dmtalon@infosec.pub
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        25 days ago

        I looked at and look at it as an investment. 13 years ago it could have been a good decision or a bad one.

        The idea behind a lifetime membership is a means to spark fund raising, and I thought then “I use this a lot, it works for me I’m gonna pay for it”.

      • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
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        25 days ago

        You’re right the guy who paid $5 once for a month of Plex Pass is way more valuable than the one who paid $75 (or $120 full price). The only people more valuable to the company than the $5 guy are the ones who use the app for free.

    • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com
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      25 days ago

      Same here. I don’t like some of the recent decisions, but I remember the time I looked at the value and thought “yeah, this is working, valuable, and I can get behind it”, and bought the lifetime pass.

      And I used the hell out of it! I don’t regret supporting the developers at all.

      But features like plugins disappear, rolled to in-house teams. They work better, but cost more to maintain.

      It’s ambitious, and gives developers plenty of work, but I feel the new redesign bit more than they can chew and overran budgets. They may be trying to balance budgets.

    • Luffy@lemmy.ml
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      25 days ago

      OK, but why is it a for profit company in the first place?

      And why does open source Software like xz, ffmpeg, etc still work without being for profit?

      Fucking liberal.

    • modus@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      Yeah, this doesn’t seem like that big of a deal for most people here. They kept the price down as long as possible. I spent $119 just before the 'rona hit and I think it’s been well worth it.

  • PhAzE@lemmy.ca
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    25 days ago

    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!

  • quack@lemmy.zip
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    25 days ago

    Can’t say I have a huge issue with this - Plex isn’t FOSS and the infrastructure to make this happen isn’t free. Other options are available if you don’t want to pay the fee.

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    24 days ago

    I’m surprised by the resistance to Jellyfin in this thread. If you are using Plex, you’re already savvy enough to use bittorrent and probably the *arrs. If you can configure that stuff, Jellyfin is absolutely something you can handle. If you like Docker, there’s good projects out there. If you’re like me and you don’t understand Docker, use Swizzin community edition. If you can install Ubuntu or Debian, and run the Swizzin script, you’re in business.

  • GrundlButter@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    25 days ago

    It looks like as long as the host has a Plex pass, this doesn’t change much. It is a regression of service, which sucks, but there are viable alternatives for those unable or unwilling to pay. And honestly, jellyfin is the clear winner in that case and always has been.

    Now, if they start to charge my friends and family for access to my media after I have already paid them for their lifetime subscription, then I’ll grab a pitchfork with the crowd.

    Also, why not run both and be ready? The resources required are minimal if you’re running via docker, just some extra RAM and a negligible amount of compute for overhead on library maintenance tasks.

    • ditty@lemm.ee
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      25 days ago

      Same. I’m not switching to Jellyfin yet either - mostly because of my boomer parents - but this is getting close to the tipping point for me

    • Evrala@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      I run both on my unraid NAS. I use plex for streaming to my phone over cell data. I use jellyfin for streaming to my laptops and TV.

      Plex tends to break every once and a while though. Not often, but it happens enough that I’m replacing it with just having my music on a DAP that is synced with Syncthing.

      I also use the comic viewer function of jellyfin.

  • profilelost@discuss.tchncs.de
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    25 days ago

    I’ve been meaning to set up a homeserver with plex recently but will defnitely go for jellyfin now that I read this thread.

  • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com
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    25 days ago

    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.

    • merthyr1831@lemmy.ml
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      25 days ago

      Old capabilities that don’t even work as well as free alternatives because AMD transcoding support has been “”“experimental”“” for years.

    • kratoz29@lemm.ee
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      25 days ago

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

      I am a Trakt user, was an Evernote user and I am (thankfully) a Plex Pass user…

      What service are we missing that has done the same? We should make a list if there is not one already.