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Plex, the free streaming app, laid off approximately 20% of its staff, TechCrunch has learned, which will affect all departments, including the Personal Media teams.

“This is by far the hardest decision we’ve had to make at Plex,” CEO Keith Valory said in a statement. “These are all wonderful people, great colleagues, and good friends. But we believe it is the right thing for the long-term health and stability of Plex.”

The streaming app gives users a single destination to upload and organize content (video, audio and photos) from their own server while also allowing them to stream it via mobile app, smart TV or desktop.

In recent years, however, Plex has invested in free, ad-supported streaming (FAST) and live TV offerings. The FAST market has become saturated as many companies have entered the space. Plus, the overall advertising industry has taken a hit, making it harder for companies to earn enough revenue.

Valory noted in his statement that the company was significantly impacted by the slowdown. “While we adjusted our business plan last year after the shift in equity markets to get us back on a path to profitability without having to cut personnel expenses, the downturn in the ad market in Q2 put significantly more pressure on our business and ultimately it became clear that we would need to take additional measures in order to maintain a confident path to profitability within the next 18 months,” he said.

He added that the company is still expected to see 30% growth this year.

According to a Slack message from Valory, obtained by The Verge, which first reported the layoffs, Valory noted that 37 employees would be impacted.

Additionally, it seems that Plex may have had another round of layoffs earlier this year. Five months ago, a former account executive posted on LinkedIn that they were “affected by company layoffs.”

As of January, the company had 175 employees, and its revenue was in the double-digit millions.

Updated 6/29/23 at 12:10 p.m. ET with a statement from CEO.

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[-] ItsaB3AR@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

I use Apple TV, something about needing a third party proprietary app makes it seem cobbled together compared to Plex, especially with that app being freemium. Maybe someday they will have a dedicated app. Last time I looked (probably a year ago) they didn’t have a system for ratings to make a kids account, has that been added?

[-] dustojnikhummer@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Well, on Apple TV you have Swiftfin, (which is 1st party) but as I don't own Apple devices I can't tell you.

[-] MonkCanatella@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

I have swiftfin. I've made bug reports etc, they're like "ok yeah maybe next year." Literally two updates in 2 years

[-] priapus@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

It's an open source app made by a non profit group. If you want to get things fixed consider a bounty or donation. Open source developers tend to not have an interest in developing for such a closed ecosystem, especially considering it charges them to distribute their apps.

[-] MonkCanatella@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

Yes absolutely agree. But with that said it’s still unusable for the foreseeable future.

[-] priapus@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago

Yeah I get that. It's unfortunate how many tv ecosystems there are to support now.

[-] MonkCanatella@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago

Yep. Some kind of webview or something so you can develop one standard offering and then just webview into it is one potential work around until each and every version can play nice with their respective OS.

[-] dustojnikhummer@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Well you can use the web interface on your TV. It doesn't work well, but it is possible.

[-] MonkCanatella@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

haha that's janky as hell. At that point you're better off connecting your laptop to your tv over hdmi or something

[-] dustojnikhummer@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Or using Kodi with a Jellyfin plugin

Or hell, casting from your phone

this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2023
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