I'm coming up on 5 years as a Plex pass owner, so my users and I will not be impacted by this change. In five more years if they asked me nicely to pay another $89 to support the service I would. Send me some stickers and put a badge on my server. I get a lot of use out of the software/service, as do my family members.

I will say, I am quite annoyed at the wording and audience of this email. Jellyfin is just not an option for me until there is excellent feature parity with Plex. I know they are a lot of Jellyfin fans here, in my opinion, Plex is a significantly better experience for me.

Once you invite an MBA in you can never uninvite them…

In 2012 (ish), I bought a lifetime subscription for a flat $75. Over the next few years of using it, they got worse and worse with shit like this, so I switched to Emby for a bit, and then Jellyfin. I never shared with friends, tho, because I have no friends, so it was always just a pretty interface and convenience for me. Lately, I've just been opening the files directly in VLC, because Remmina is refusing to connect to my media server, and I can't be arsed to figure out why.

I have a lifetime Plex Pass, but I stopped using Plex a couple months ago after finally diving into Jellyfin. Even ignoring everything else, just the performance difference made the change worth it. Everything from UI responsiveness on smart TV apps to library scans on the server.

But it's included in a plex pass. I know a lot of people were saying, a while back, they were happy to purchase a lifetime pass, so as to support the software. I didn't actually realise you could share without the plex pass. I thought that was always a thing.

People are saying switch to jellyfin, which I'm all for. But you're expecting a service which will make remote access easy like Plex ur kinda fucked.

I mean if have to set up wireguard or whatever for Jellyfin you could just do the same for Plex?

Again go to jellyfin either way, proprietary software can suck my gurl cawk, but either way you need a VPN or open ports.

The beginning of enshittification.

Prices will keep climbing, functionality reduced in favor of service tiers, and of course ads, ads, and ads.

Jellyfin ia great! But syncplay breaks if you snease.

I see some posts taking about jellyfin and tailscale and I find it interesting that it's not mentioned tailscale is a private company. Why are they not being held to the same standard as Plex? How long before it becomes enshittified? I saw they have a free plan but give it time until they realize the number of users in the free tier are large enough to monetize.

edit: I'm prepared to be down voted but mark this and see where it ends up at.

Edit2: and I'm not defending Plex. I agree it's a shitty move.

the virgin Plex vs the chad Jellyfin

Enshittification engaged. /j

Uninstalled. I don't mind as much for sharing my library but if I have to pay to stream MY OWN SERVERS CONTENT using your service, that's a hard pass. My homes all use jellyfin now

This will affect any server that does not already have a Plex Pass/ Lifetime Plex Pass. If your server does not have one, your remote users will have to pay. The service Plex provides is still worth it though, it largely just works on dozens of platforms and that shit isn't free to make.

Sharing a Jellyfin server with others remotely is still a lot more complicated than it needs to be to compete (no, it's not as simple as opening a port, and if you think so then you're either lucky or you aren't sharing with lots of folks). I run both and I would never try to share Jellyfin with non-technical people. Honestly, I wish Jellyfin would start offering an optional paid relay service to fund their development. They could use the revenue to improve their app ecosystem and still produce mostly open-source software. Homeassistant does this with Nabu Casa and it's great!

That being said, the new Plex Android app kinda sucks ass. If there was anything that would make me switch it wouldn't be having to pay for software, or services it'd be a garbage experience on my most common platform.

This doesn't really affect my household. My wife, my daughter, and I all have lifetime PlexPasses.

That said, this level of enshitification has me wishing there were options (yes I know about Emby and Jellyfin and I've investigated both more than once) but they have me ensnared by PlexAmp and Sonos integration. I've been around since before anyone had even seen the letters MP3 strung together, and I have never had a music player as capable as PlexAmp.

What was the appeal of Plex anyway?