- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
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.
Why would you expect this to NOT be paid? It requires them to be running servers to stream the media through, I wouldn’t expect this to be a free feature.
I dislike Plex for several reasons, but asking for payment for stuff that costs them money is completely justified.
Why is this getting upvoted? Plex isn’t running a server. You are. Your computer and your media files are quite literally “the server” that is serving the files to you remotely. Plex is at best doing authentication.
For remote streaming they do, here are their docs on it https://support.plex.tv/articles/216766168-accessing-a-server-through-relay/
From that documentation:
Because he’s right. You can’t access your own server remotely without plex’s infrastructure (provided you don’t just set up that infrastructure yourself). You don’t need to open ports or anything. Your server reaches out to plex server, which creates an entry point to your network. Your stream is then either routed through their servers or possibly setup as P2P stream.
That’s just not correct. Mate. It’s setting up a secure route from the client to your Plex server. It’s essentially doing what Tailscale does but just handling the client setup automatically via their Plex authentication. They are authenticating the connection and setting up the route from the client to the server. They are not handling petabytes of data people are streaming. The ISPs are doing that.
Ok sure, they aren’t routing, just using P2P like I mentioned. It’s still not possible to access remotely without using plex services. This is what you are paying for. If you don’t want to pay for their auto-config remote streaming it’s easy enough to do it yourself.
I can’t back this up but I highly doubt that the media is played through Plex’ server.
Its not. It is setting up a secure route from the client to the server. That is quite literally not a server. No one thinks Tailscale is a Server service. That’s essentially all they are doing but just handling adding the clients automatically when they authenticate.
Wait a moment. I always thought that Plex’s servers only facilitate authentication (to verify your account) and discovery (to help your device find your server). They do not handle the actual media data. And if there is no Direct Remote Access, Relay usage is capped at 1 minute per day for free users. This looks like a cash grab to me.