Plex has paywalled my server!
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I tried testing a movie from my home server in plex through firefox and repeatedly got this message, even after reloading.
I knew that they had paywalled the apps on mobile and streaming from outside the network but now they have also blocked watching your own movies through your own hardware.
I do get the point that making software should be able to sustain people but I dont see the move of plex as a fair thing to do. Yes, they have made great software but taking your home server hostage feels like the wrong move.
Even a pop up that says "we need you to donate please" would have been fine. make it pop up before every movie, play donation ads before any movie but straight up disabling the app is kinda cruel.
Anyway, i have switched to jellyfin and it is insanely good. please give it a try. you can run it alongside plex with not issues (at least i had none) and compare the two.
In any case, good luck. Let me know if you need help.
Why anyone still uses Plex for new setups is beyond me.
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I tried testing a movie from my home server in plex through firefox and repeatedly got this message, even after reloading.
I knew that they had paywalled the apps on mobile and streaming from outside the network but now they have also blocked watching your own movies through your own hardware.
I do get the point that making software should be able to sustain people but I dont see the move of plex as a fair thing to do. Yes, they have made great software but taking your home server hostage feels like the wrong move.
Even a pop up that says "we need you to donate please" would have been fine. make it pop up before every movie, play donation ads before any movie but straight up disabling the app is kinda cruel.
Anyway, i have switched to jellyfin and it is insanely good. please give it a try. you can run it alongside plex with not issues (at least i had none) and compare the two.
In any case, good luck. Let me know if you need help.
Every non-Free Software will betray you eventually. It's only a matter of time.
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Someone else already said it and you've already swapped but I'll say it in detail:
when setting the server connection up you selected "ServerName (long string of numbers)" and not "ServerName (your IP - SECURE)"
this routes your connection through the Plex servers and makes it not a local connection anymore. this is extremely easy to do and forget you've done because it barely impacts performance
In other words, it's a dark pattern that tricks users into letting Plex MITM their connection.
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OP has a misconfigured server and isn't connecting to their server over LAN.
But I keep hearing the value of Plex is that anyone can use it.
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Yeah. "How are they supposed to make their money" is a question that I'm grappling with right now. OSS is hard enough with a straightforward MIT license but figuring out how to monetize in the OSS space (that doesn't always reward nuance), adds a lot of complexity. I'm starting fresh, so I'm not changing anything on anyone... but getting a monetization strategy that is 100% perfect out of the gate is not likely so seeing this vs. a response like Pangolin's is helpful.
That's a good point, and it's one that isn't solved yet in the foss space.
There are some success stories like Blender, and other projects like Thunderbird and KDE who have recently made their model work through voluntary donations, albeit by hiring competent management of such donations. And there are lots and lots of projects somewhere in between.
The interesting questions to me aren't so much about Plex, but the infrastructure behind all the tools we use: NTP on Linux, build tools, ffmpeg libraries, etc. Lots of other companies make products that make money, yet kick back nothing to these.
Would a royalty system work? I dont know.
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But I keep hearing the value of Plex is that anyone can use it.
Yes anyone can use it even people who don't know how to configure their server
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Yes anyone can use it even people who don't know how to configure their server
The OP might disagree from what I'm seeing.
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In this thread:
- An OP that doesn’t understand how their network is working
- People rushing to suggest a solution that they fawn over because it’s open source. I have yet to see anyone recommend Emby.
- “Tailscale will solve all your problems!” Great - how do I make that work on an LG TV that’s 100 miles away?
wrote last edited by [email protected]I'll add to #2 (IDK if it's open source, though):
Give Stremio a try. Once you set it up (basically just add the Torrentio plug-in then whatever content catalogs you want), the workflow is much better and simpler than Plex.
You just browse it like Netflix: see something you want to watch, select it with your remote, then stream it immediately. No server to run, you don't have to build libraries, you don't even have download the content beforehand. Just select and watch. Could not be easier.
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I have had great success with tailscale in this regard.
The same tailscale that announced last week that they are going to start charging?
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In this thread:
- An OP that doesn’t understand how their network is working
- People rushing to suggest a solution that they fawn over because it’s open source. I have yet to see anyone recommend Emby.
- “Tailscale will solve all your problems!” Great - how do I make that work on an LG TV that’s 100 miles away?
wrote last edited by [email protected]- Open source has high immunity to devs making changes at the expense of the user for their benefit because anti-features can be removed. Recommending another proprietary alternative here would be like saying they aught to leave an abusive partner but then recommend someone with the same red flags.
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I started down the Jellyfin path after they made that announcement. It's super easy to install, and in many ways the UI is nicer than Plex. But I ran into challenges getting my server safely accessible for users outside my LAN. And I haven't had the time to look into that further.
Would be great if there was a clean, easy way to set up the webserver portion so it's as easy to share content entirely as Plex. But I get they are a volunteer project with a lot on their plate.
But I ran into challenges getting my server safely accessible for users outside my LAN
FWIW:
- vps + domain (optional?)
- connect vps to home server with wireguard (eg Tailscale)
- reverse proxy on the VPS forwarding to jellyfin (eg Caddy)
Obviously not as trivial or seamless as Plex. Also I wouldn't try to complicate this setup by using docker for everything. But once its up you can basically host whatever you want on the WAN from your LAN.
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What we should be asking is why “selling a product” is no longer a business model.
Because they're not selling a product, they're selling an ongoing service. They run the relay servers, and those cost money every month.
I bought a media management and consumption platform running on my own server using my own clients. For what reason do I need a relay service to watch content in my house on my server?
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In this thread:
- An OP that doesn’t understand how their network is working
- People rushing to suggest a solution that they fawn over because it’s open source. I have yet to see anyone recommend Emby.
- “Tailscale will solve all your problems!” Great - how do I make that work on an LG TV that’s 100 miles away?
If #3 is your use case, then yeah, pony up the fees. Or learn to code I guess.
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In other words, it's a dark pattern that tricks users into letting Plex MITM their connection.
It gets around port forwarding/firewall issues that most people don't know how to deal with. But putting it behind a paywall kinda kills any chance of it being a benevolent feature.
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What we should be asking is why “selling a product” is no longer a business model.
Such a good question. Off the top of my head, I can think of two reasons: one cynical, one a little more practical.
Cynical first lol: Maxmize profits. Why charge once when you can charge monthly. I'll move off this bc it's a topic that's been beaten to death, esp. here on Lemmy.
The more practical reason is probably because most software interacts pretty directly with the internet in some way. When we were just installing MSOffice98 with clippy, software didn't need constant security updates, patches, etc. Remember when there was an update for MSOffice and you'd install Service Pack 1? That was one of the first patches I downloaded from the internet and it was a big deal back then. Now updates come out at least monthly, many times more often than that. I guess that means that you have multple product cycles occuring concurrently, which creates a financial model with a lot more unknowns... which in turn makes it harder to forecast what a product should cost, considering it would be the only revenue generated, per license for the life of the product.
I think selling a product is still a very viable business model, but you have to be a lot more accurate about revenue forcasting and product pricing. I guess it means you have a lot less room for error (from a business perspective).
This is not Microsoft. I haven’t updated my plex software in over six months and it runs fine.
Still, yes, I would expect updates to any software I purchase as new patches are needed for OS updates, etc. That shouldn’t be more than two updates a year for a given OS - if at all.Selling a product, generating revenue, using revenue to improve products or create new products is how we used to run businesses.
If they’re unable to maintain software updates with the revenue they get, then they should discontinue support of less popular products.
As I’ve stated on the plex forum, plex is no longer a media management and consumption platform. It’s a video on demand service. That’s their prerogative and that’s fine. The issue is that they’re discontinuing a product that people have purchased and use on a regular basis. I paid money for a product and that product can no longer be used if I change the device I use that product on. They should have left the existing product alone and released something wholly new.
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The OP might disagree from what I'm seeing.
OP is also in the allegedly ultra rare camp of “successfully configured Jellyfin and lived to tell the tale.” Not what I’d expect of someone unable to configure Plex correctly. I’ve not set up a Plex server myself but my guess is it wasn’t clear that it was misconfigured - it did work previously, after all.
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Considering both Plex and Tailscale are going toward VC exits, Headscale and Jellyfin is the only FOSS way atm.
I just use nginx on a tiny Hetzner vps acting as a reverse proxy for my home server. I dunno what the point of Tailscale is here, maybe better latency and fewer network hops in some cases if a p2p connection is possible? But I've never had any bandwidth or latency issues doing this
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But I ran into challenges getting my server safely accessible for users outside my LAN
FWIW:
- vps + domain (optional?)
- connect vps to home server with wireguard (eg Tailscale)
- reverse proxy on the VPS forwarding to jellyfin (eg Caddy)
Obviously not as trivial or seamless as Plex. Also I wouldn't try to complicate this setup by using docker for everything. But once its up you can basically host whatever you want on the WAN from your LAN.
Awesome, thanks for the tips!
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Why anyone still uses Plex for new setups is beyond me.
pretty much the only reason I still use Plex is because I like to be able to watch stuff during downtime at work and plex.tv isn't blocked on the work network while my private domain is.
And no, using a hotspot off my phone on a personal computer isn't an option, both because the security requirements of my job site prevent us from using personal devices in the main area where I work and because the building itself is a massive concrete structure that blocks most cell signals.
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It gets around port forwarding/firewall issues that most people don't know how to deal with. But putting it behind a paywall kinda kills any chance of it being a benevolent feature.
Labeling it as "SECURE" (implying the other option is insecure) is enough to make it seem underhanded to me.
