I remember being excited when it first came out, but then as we know capitalism happened and ruined it. Im all jellyfin now. But was plex originally starting out to be a good thing or was it just to trick us into being locked into their service after we all got on it?
In the beginning it was quite good. And innovative, but as aged, it went from a local app, like jellyfin, to a centralized one. Their api server crashed once and plex was absolutely useless. Later, they started feeling pressure from the big rights holders and started to pivot to a media hub, and away from pirated content.
I jumped ship shortly after the api server crash, if I couldn’t use a local app to watch local content on my network, I didn’t want anything to do with it.
I have a lifetime sub to plex and haven’t spun it up in over 6 years.
I missed out on a lifetime pass when it was on sale for $25. I told myself I would pick it up next time it went on sale for that price, but then it never went below $50. Now I’m kinda thankful that it didn’t.
Likewise. Lifetime pass, but I’ll never touch their product again. They really dicked over a lot of people to please corporate threats. Now it’s just an enshittified dumpster fire to me.
Plex is still the most feature rich and easiest to set up, both for admins and users.
I do not want to expose Jellyfin ports to the internet, nor teach and troubleshoot an extra service like Tailscale for friends and family. I send a Plex invite, they download the app (available on pretty much every device) and we’re done.
Projects like Kometa and some Tautulli integrations let you customize and organize your Plex media in ways just not possible in Jellyfin yet (to my knowledge). For example, I hate spoilers in TV shows, and I have all episode thumbnails automatically blurred and episode summaries censored. I don’t like how Jellyfin handles collections, while Kometa is simply fantastic for letting me automate collection maintenance for any criteria I can think of.
I am currently running both, mostly to keep an eye on Jellyfin’s progress, but it’s hard to argue that Plex is a more polished and streamlined experience.
I have Plex pass and feel I’ve got more than my money’s worth. I don’t feel like anything has been “rug pulled” from under me and I’ve yet to see any features I paid for get removed. I am not a fan of the recent “trending with friends” fiasco and I wouldn’t hesitate to use Jellyfin more if the features were there, but right now it’s just not there yet.
After I set up my server and paid for the hardware, after my vpn, and after I paid for my Usenet subscription, and yeah, after I paid for lifetime Plex. I’m money ahead. Easily.
I have no Netflix, Hulu, apple, Amazon. All of it. ,that’s a monthly sub for each. That’s satellite tv money each month!
It’s not a rug pull. I got my money’s worth. And I’m late to the game. God forbid you are an early bird and have been living the high life for years and years! It’s not a rug pull at all.
If the whole thing folded tomorrow, I’m still money ahead and a few steps away from adopting jellyfin. How the fuck is that a rug pull? It did what I wanted and has done it well. And when or if it fails, I move on. That’s more resiliency than 99 percent of the other services I have used. And a better service and platform to boot!
Rug pull? seriously?
FYI:
We have recently experienced a security incident that may potentially involve your Plex account information. We believe the actual impact of this incident is limited; however, action is required from you to ensure your account remains secure.
Source: https://forums.plex.tv/t/important-notice-of-security-incident/930523
Plex has been around for a while, long before “capitalism happened” as you put it. At the time it spawned a whole lot of different alternatives, it also triggered how we interact with our media libraries. I recall having to set-up my own server and client before I could start to import and manage my own media. That wasn’t trivial, least of which caused by needing to rip DVD without the high speed access to internet acting as a source.
Plex was great in
20012004 when I had videos on my Macintosh and I wanted to play them using thePS2PS3 hooked up to the television.20 years is a long time for a rug pull. I think they just found themselves more excited about money after a while.
I think it is still pretty great, if you are a Plex lifetime pass user.
Plex is still good, I’ve been running it for a decade. It was incredible when I started using it and they’ve added improvements I wanted in that time. I’m not too arsed about some of the recent additions, but I’ve never not been able to disable something that I didn’t want
Jellyfin is good too, and I’d probably pick it if I was starting a new server today, but I’ve yet to actually experience anything negative from Plex, and still feel like I got value for money.
Possibly big caveat: I got a lifetime Plex pass ages ago, I’ve not paid attention to what they’re charging in a long time.
Bought lifetime membership 11/12 years ago. Never had a problem. I need a VPN with dedicated IP to deal with the double NAT from my ISP, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
It is entirely unfair to call such an old, well developed and we’ll supported piece of free software a rug pull. Many features remain free too…
I still love it and use it everyday. The Plexamp app is fantastic and solved my music issues with limited space on my phone. The apps work great.
I tried to setup jellyfin twice, but it’s just too much work to get it to function, and Plex took me 5 minutes.
I’ve used plex a lot. I prefer it to jellyfin in regards to media mgmt. But them paywalling a non paid feature really pissed me off and definitely felt like a rug pull. All the assholes with lifetime Plexpasses will gloat because they don’t feel any of the changes. But yeah, feels pretty shitty. I only used plex for my own self hosted content. Never cared about any of the streaming they offered outside of that.
I mean, it’s good now.
I guess there’s a question about good for what, but what it does it does pretty well.
You’re describing the product life cycle of most Internet things.
Oh I well know. That’s why im slowly going as open source as possible for everything.
I was there. 3000 years ago.
Ive had my gripes with them over the years but they’ve always had the most feature rich and mostly polished system. I did use Emby (what Jellyfin spawned from) for a few years when Plex was struggling with EAC3 audio and have lifetime passes for both but always come back to Plex.
I won’t defend their recent restrictions on free accounts and additions of features nobody wants, but if you already have a lifetime pass its still the best option IMO.
