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Plex is locking remote streaming behind a subscription in April (www.plex.tv)

submitted 2 days ago by Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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Ahoy mateys, it's time to setup Jellyfin if you prefer not to pay for the privilege of self-hosting your own content.

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/27204525

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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[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 68 points 2 days ago

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.

What "resources" do you need, exactly, to allow my friends to stream from my server?

[-] Pika@sh.itjust.works 31 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

mr crabs money meme with mr crabs and an announcer outside of the krusty crab

for real though, such a dumb decision on plex's part lol

[-] Carrot@lemmy.today 22 points 2 days ago

Developers to keep things up to date and secure. Which I wouldn't mind paying for, but instead they spend it all on making Plex a social media that emails your friends a list of shows you watch? I can tell you right now that other than "watch together" no one is using the Plex social features on purpose

[-] borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago

Pretty sure they’re also sunsetting watch together lol

[-] Scary_le_Poo@beehaw.org 15 points 2 days ago

As long as you have Plex pass it's all good and nothing changes. That said, this was exactly my reaction. Plex expends exactly zero fucking resources for my server, so wtf is this shit supposed to mean?

[-] kieron115@startrek.website 30 points 2 days ago

I'm pretty sure that's corporate speak for "we need to drive plex pass subscriptions more so we need to lock more feature behind it."

[-] skankhunt42@lemmy.ca 11 points 2 days ago

This is 100% my opinion too.

I'm annoyed that I supported them and got a lifetime account on sale. At the same time I'm happy that I can take my time testing and moving my family and friends over to something else.

[-] nonailsleft@lemm.ee 5 points 2 days ago

Paying devs

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 2 points 2 days ago

What does that have to do with my friends streaming from my server?

[-] pupbiru@aussie.zone 7 points 2 days ago

they never said they needed resources for the remote playback… they said that they needed more resources - ie money to develop the software in general, and this are feature gating a useful feature to try and convince people to pay

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 2 points 2 days ago

they never said they needed resources for the remote playback…

That's exactly what it sounds like to me...

[-] pupbiru@aussie.zone 4 points 2 days ago

that’s fine… but it’s not necessarily what it says. it’s ambiguous at best, but if they’d meant they need you to pay them for resources then theyd probably say it more outright

[-] MaggiWuerze@feddit.org 4 points 2 days ago

Their revenue stream is based on license fees for the software? So if they want to keep the lights on they need money

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 3 points 2 days ago

Okay so you agree it's nothing to do with "resources" and everything to do with locking features behind paywalls to drive up revenue?

[-] MaggiWuerze@feddit.org 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

developers are a "resource" and they need to be paid. Do you want to keep getting updates for your server? Someone needs to do that and that someone wants to be paid in this case