this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
79 points (88.3% liked)

Selfhosted

39435 readers
8 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

I was trying to think how Plex thinks this is going to play out, knowing that this move will piss off their customer base. Then I realized, this isn't a play for Plex's existing customer base. This is a play for their customer's "friends and family" that are enjoying shared libraries already.

Their 'customer' base has for many many years been developing a large user base of technologically naive people with Plex apps installed who could never run their own server. If Plex knows, for example, that for every paying customer there's three other users pulling from someone's library, that's a huge opportunity for them to convert those users to paying customers.

Everyone that set up a Plex server and then shared it with your tech-phobic parents, cousins, friends, etc... We made this possible.

I don't like it but I can't argue with the logic from Plex here.

-edit- Tightened up the grammar.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Is that bad though? I don't mind renting a movie I really like even if my friend has it on their Plex. Especially if it's from a small studio. Currently I do that via Google TV. Plex Inc being a small private company might use the money better than a publicly traded giant. I wouldn't mind my friends and family spending a few bucks on it either.

Of course if Plex starts enshitifying existing private streaming features to push this, that'll be another matter altogether. Which would not be unexpected.

[–] lambda 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I've been switched to using Jellyfin anyways. I hope they can do this successfully. They haven't been the best for a while anyways..

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'll probably trial Jellyfin too in preparation to migrate the family should push come to shove.

[–] lambda 2 points 9 months ago

It's worth donating if you have the means to. I paid for a lifetime Plex subscription. So, I felt uncomfortable not donating to Jellyfin. They take donations on open collective.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Yikes this is a good theory. Eventually we will be snuffed out. Sharing will stop. Etc.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Well maybe not. Without the shared libraries I doubt the tech-phobic users will stick around for movies they can likely find other places, especially since I doubt Plex gets very good deals for content.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I wouldn't be so sure if that. It's possible, yeah, but if my theory is right they see the library sharing as the carrot to get normies to download the plex app onto their roku or apple TV.

Pivoting to a streaming only app would close off that avenue for user acquisition permanently.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I like this theory and I hope your logic check out. I am a little worried that I will have to make a change soon.