I am that guy. I got pissed off that there was no way to buy all of the episodes of Good Eats legally. Next thing I knew, I had a dual xeon server and 60TB of hard drives. Of the 50 or so people using my server I think 6 have servers of their own.

I’m a Plex server guy for friends and family, I have about a dozen users and maybe 3-4 at a time at the peaks. I charge nothing, it’s just a hobby. We’re out there.

I’d switch to Jellyfin but my users need transcoding and Plexamp is my favorite audio player since Winamp.

Depends what industry you're in, I guess

I'm in tech and there are more Plex guys than people looking for Plex guys

I have a Plex server guy. He is one of my oldest and best friends although we don't get to hang out much anymore. I know he has other friends he shares the Plex server with but I have no idea who or how many. I've been using it since Plex was new, not sure how long exactly but more than a decade. I occasionally buy him nice hard drives because the library is ridiculously huge and always growing. As someone who loves weird and obscure shit, it's my favorite streaming service by far and he's my hero for running it.

I run an Emby server, but just for family. Two of my kids use it, one doesn't. I posted previously that my daughter doesn't have anything that can play a DVD, but she still gets them and I add them to my server so she can watch them.

I added my parents to it, and they watched some stuff, but they can't remember how to use it. Every time I show them, my dad will watch things for a few days, then he forgets how.

I appear to be unique among the people running streaming servers in that I only add things if I own the DVD (or if they're in the public domain). I also only have about 1300 movies.

I visit thrift stores to get cheap DVDs. There's one near me that charges $1/DVD, but they have a 50% off sale on the last weekend of every month.

I'm trying to be more particular about what I add. I had started thinking that for 50¢, I can buy a shittier movie, but now I'm only getting the movie if I know it's worth it, or if it's got > 7 IMDB rating.

Today's haul included True Grit (the remake), Capote, and Ready Player One.

I can't say how many people are trying to make money on it, but there are plenty of folks running Plex or Jellyfin servers that they'll allow friends and family to access. And I would estimate that a fairly low percentage of those have no pirated content on them. So even for the small-group servers, discussions of piracy are often relevant.

I do run a Jellyfin server, but only locally on my own network.

There was a community when I first moved to Lemmy where people could advertise their Plex/Jellyfin servers that they were willing to share, either for a fee or free. No idea if it is still around or active.

Why would people do that? People don’t do that.

first, id like to say.. fuck plex. friends dont let friends use plex.

that said, im the guy youre talkin about. i have a massive personal video library i push into a front-end that i share with friends and family.. even some coworkers.

the fact is, storage is very cheap now... throw in the very mature applications for obtaining/servicing the stuff stored therein it becomes trivial for guys like me to spread the wealth.

data hoarders are people that dont appreciate having to rely on other people for our shit.. streaming? only from our own servers. there are lots of us

yes but usually at the family and friends distribution level

I am Plex Guy, my friend is Plex Guy, between the 2 of us we share our servers to over a dozen people. My mom and grandma use my server in another state, I don't charge anyone access. In total I have 8 users on my server, my friend has probably the same on his, with both of us giving access to a different friend meaning he has access to double the amount of content.

I got absolutely fed up with subscription services raising prices and removing content (I only ever had Hulu and Netflix) so I just built my own service. My only subscription now is a Tidal family plan for myself, my wife and my mom.

Also it's interesting how between these 2 servers, they're built differently. I built mine using TrueNAS and housed it in a dedicated PC case large enough for all the drives, my buddy made his as a Windows server, and has everything wall mounted with custom 3D printed brackets.

Also, when I go to Brazil for vacation, my content isn't region locked, it's at home in a box on my living room that I just access with no VPN or any bullshit needed.

I am a Jellyfin server guy, and I Iet family and friends use it for free. I also am not shy about telling people that I do this, as I don't see any moral issue with it and will happily defend piracy as not only completely fine, but a net moral good. I see it as a tiny bit of anarchist calisthenics.

I've ditched all streaming services in favour of a friend's 40tb Plex server, running from the server room of the university where he works. It's rock solid and has everything I want to watch.

Anything he can't find, or that I personally want my own access to goes in my own Jellyfin server.

It's great. Better than spending £50 a month on a couple of services.

I run a Jellyfin server for anyone who has VPN access to my internal network.

However, there’s “plex server” posters with QR codes on them on telephone poles in my area, that seem to have a subscription portal you have to go through to get an account.

So there are definitely people attempting to make some money off of pirate plex servers.

Dated a guy last year who had access to a giant plex library. He just told me a friend let him log in tob theirs. So ya, plex guys do exist.

Yes, there's even a subreddit dedicated to people advertising their Plex servers. Lots of them are paid, it's wild.