- cross-posted to:
- selfhosted@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- selfhosted@lemmy.world
Plex has announced a massive price increase on the service’s Lifetime Plex Pass. On July 1, the lifetime subscription option will go from $249.99 to $749.99, an increase of 200%. The price hike will only apply to new subscribers, with no changes to monthly or annual subscription pricing.
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Jellyfin guys
My Jellyfin server goes, “Burrrrrrr!”
Honestly, I made the switch about 6 months ago and haven’t looked back once. The Jellyfin native Android TV app is a bit lacking, but I recently installed Wholpin and find it much better!
My only other gripe is that Plex allows you to set subtitle and audio language preferences per library while JF only allows one preference for the whole server. This is annoying for those of us enjoying foreign language films, where I often end up having to play with the settings every time I want to watch a foreign feature.
I’ve also heard that some people miss the syndication of Plex, where you have one account connected to many servers. I only connect to my own, so don’t know much about this.
Ooohh. Language preference per library would be so nice. Not having to fuck with languages on anime would be so convenient.
Literally 10x the price I paid for mine
Early adopter club 🙌🙌
Early rejector club. Jellyfin gang.
I have underwear older then jellyfin. Plex was the only option for some time
Edit: Alright, alright, it wasn’t the only option, but it was the cleanest/easiest way to make a home server feel like a streaming service that I knew of at the time
It was?
I started streaming video in around 2001. Over SMB. Using VLC as the client.
Then I switched to using iTunes as a server.
Then came XMPP/Kodi.
And eventually, Jellyfin.
Every few years, I’ve tried Plex, and it’s never done quite what I wanted, and required security/privacy compromises. About the only thing it has going for it is that the client and the server will run on just about anything.
As I said in a different comment, I think “only one of its kind” was probably a better fit, at least in terms of collected features and sharing capabilities
I was using MythTV long before Plex came around.
I guess what I should have said was “only one of its kind”. As far as I knew, it was the only one that did all the metadata stuff to give it the “streaming service” feel. Being able to share my library to others outside my home without hassle was also big
That was before the streaming services or most of the current VPN recommendations existed and Myth was mainly competing with TiVo. So, you could set up a front end remotely, but it would have been painful.
They’ve always done metadata collection though. What Plex added was the connection so you don’t need to set up a VPN for remote access.
I have underwear older then jellyfin.
And plex still does some things better.
There were and are plenty of alternatives to Plex. Plex was never, “the only option”.
What about Emby?
The scary part and the reason I never paid is because I think they will shut down plex soon. No one is paying for streaming services anymore and those giants will start coming down on the gov to do something about it. EU is coming down pretty hard on IPTV and torrent sites already.
The EU shouldn’t because most of those streaming services are American. So it’s only good for us if people pirate. It offsets some of the tariffs Trump has levied.
And it’s those services’ own fault. They offered a decent value for money for years. Now they keep wanting more and more. Rising fees, content disappearing to other platforms but still asking for more money. Adding ads and then asking for money to remove them. Eventually people are sick of it and go like 🖕
Wait wait wait so… you pay THEM to let YOU share YOUR media? Wha?
An absolutely insane number of self hosting options require a subscription for now fucking reasoning.
Not a one time buy which would at least make sense. No no! Its a monthly fee AND half the time they require a Internet connection and checkin. Just to SELF HOST.
its fucking baffling.
I don’t know why anyone would pay that instead of using Jellyfin. I’ve had my server up for years now and it works great.
Last I looked, jellyfin auth and public facing security were less than ideal.
How far has that come in the last few years? I have plenty of people using my Plex and it’s been secure. I had heard a public facing Jellyfin wasn’t super secure.
Honestly, 95% of the reason I use Plex is so I don’t have to manage user passwords and troubleshoot issues for my friends and family. I just grant access.
I moved from the default jellyfin login method to using Authentik as the identity provider. Now its part of my homelab setup where all services have SSO, and I don’t have to create/manage an account for each person for each service.
I only need my server to work locally so I haven’t messed with that part personally. But I’ve read that setting up tailscale is straightforward and works fine. There are many other solutions to the problem. I would definitely invest a lot of effort before paying for Plex.
Great; how do I setup Tailscale on my mother’s Roku TV?
Unfortunately, that’s probably not gonna happen without some new hardware.
You could setup a wire guard at the router (can you setup tail scale on a router? idk). If she’s renting the ISP router, replacing that could save a 100+ a year, depending on how much the isp is scamming her for it.
or you could repurpose a minipc/nuc from bay and set up a jellyfin streaming box with tailscale.
If you have the extra hardware, you could also setup a local server with her jellyfin and use wiregaurd/tailscale to remotely connect to it and run backup/sync during off-hours.
So, no answer because I can’t. I’m not replicating buying hardware for all of the people who are on my plex account to move them to some free software because all y’all who shout “Jellyfin” do so because you do t want to pay for anything.
Why doesn’t anyone ever mention Emby? Oh, right, because you have to support the project and no one wants to do that.
Plex isn’t in the right here, but yelling Jellyfin ever. Single. Time. Is like using a hammer to tighten a screw; it’s not always the right tool for the job and tall look like morons for just blindly parroting what others say.
Bro, if you want to use Emby, nobody is stopping you. Jellyfin is the popular solution because it is open source. Emby isn’t a project, it’s a product just like plex is a product. Both Emby and Plex started as free methods to host your media and converted to a paid closed source solution. Jellyfin is a fork of Emby from before they moved to closed source and remains free and open to this day.
No one is stopping you from recommending it either.
Are you OK? I didn’t realize my comment was so inflammatory. I just love Jellyfin and don’t appreciate Plex’s actions over the years. You love Emby. That’s cool! Use what works for you.
Byeeeeee
https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-ar300m/
Configure one of these to sit between the TV and your mother’s network and pass all the tv traffic through an exit node on your jellyfin network.
Most smart TVs have a tailscale app you can install directly on device. Roku is an exception to that.
I love their routers but that one doesn’t have tailscale support, even if you did manage to install it (I did so on a mango) I think it would run extremely poorly
Funny enough I actually meant to link this one, which is specifically for this purpose. https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-mt5000/
That’s okay though because the guy I was replying to didn’t actually want the help. He just wanted to complain that people aren’t recommending his preferred software.
That’s a better choice, got one myself the other day, haven’t actually had a chance to try it but their support has literally sent me firmware ahead of release (for mango), they fix their stuff.
Nope. How do I do it on the TV directly?
I bring this up every time someone parrots off the Lemmy line of “Jellyfin” because that’s all you all know. Not what’s best for the use case, just ram Jellyfin in there shortcoming and all.
I haven’t checked in on Jellyfin for a while now, but don’t they still have issues with hardware transcoding support?
Not to mention the lack of software clients on other platforms for just playback that Plex has been established on for years and even multiple device generations like with PlayStation, Roku, Fire Stick, etc.?
Also you have to configure your own reverse proxy / Tailscale set up to securely access a content library remotely, right - as opposed Plex’s relatively simpler remote access configuration?
What kinds of issues? I put an Intel Arc in my server and it’s working fine AFAICT.
deleted by creator
I have an ~80GB movie that I can watch on a TV that can’t even handle the data rate for that file, nevermind the codecs.
But if the couple minutes to click “this client can’t handle anything over 60Mbps x264” is too much work, then by all means keep paying for Plex. Or “hypothetically” find a smaller copy of that movie.
I’m always amazed by the number of people who absolutely can’t leave Plex because they’ve got 14 grandparents streaming 8k rips all day every day.
I have not personally experienced any issues with hardware transcoding. My server is an old Dell Optiplex and I use clients on Linux, Android, Roku and Shield.
Yes you are correct about remote access and if that was a priority for me, I would happily learn that part instead of paying for Plex.
How much do you donate to jellyfin? If I sum up my 20 bucks per year for the next 50 years, I end up with 1000 bucks. If I wanted to pay today, I’d donate even more to jellyfin. (Neglecting inflation)
What about Emby?
I haven’t looked at Emby in a long time. Last I checked, it wasn’t as capable or feature rich as Jellyfin or Plex
Not as feature rich as plex, sure. Emby be Jellyfin? Emby wins by a country mile.
If it works for you, great!
Plex announces that it is tired of having all of these customers buying their software
How much longer before the yearly/monthly goes up this much.
How much longer until all the current lifetime subscribers have to pay up to the current price to keep it?
Yeah eventually they will figure out to nullify the old cheap lifetime subscriptions.
I’m just waiting for them to decide all the lifetime members need to pay monthly and kill off the lifetime memberships. Probably by having a ‘new’ version that for some made up reason can only function
on the blood of the unbornon monthly subscriptions. Where the only real change will be a different UI that’s missing features which they will tout as “cleaner”.
I can kind of understand why they don’t want users buying a lifetime pass. It means they will not get any further funding from that person. It’s worth the tradeoff when you are smaller and need funding, but kind of a hinderance once you are more established.
Either way, I’m glad I purchased the lifetime pass when it was much cheaper years ago.
Yeah Lifetime Passes are unsustainable for a service. The only reason they exist is to attract some early adopters, keep them and if lucky enough have them bring more customers.
The only viable path forward is to discontinue the purchase of new lifetime licenses, or make them exponentially expensive.
At this point, I think we all can see the critical tipping point of enshittification writing on the wall for Plex.
I know everyone says Jellyfin, but given how easy Plex still handles hardware transcoding on many common current standard NAS configurations as well as the somewhat non-standard network configurations needed to otherwise easily yet securely access content remotely from external locations, not to mention the decent UX and deep integration across all client platforms whether web, iOS, Android, Smart TV, and even things like PlayStation and Xbox hardware, but do others here have some any thoughts on how to jump ship to get 1:1 features here at some point?
Many people have been on Plex for more than a decade and have seen it slowly try to reposition its business model to one that is leaning toward something more akin to a streaming subscription rather than a simple personal content library software… but I still have yet to feel the need to switch… at least not yet.
Laugh while you can monkey boy! But in 2037 when its $75000 for a lifetime pass, I’ll be the one laughing then!
If you just live long enough this is an amazing deal! A steal I tell you!
If you don’t see it that way you are timid and weak and don’t have the confidence to survive another 6 or 7 decades!
Massive price hike causes massive customer hike to Jellyfin lol
I got a Plex Lifetime Pass mainly for Plexamp + Tidal, but then they removed the Tidal integration. Roon lifetime pass is similar to what Plex is now, which is basically the only other option for this that exists right now.
Pro-tip: If the company hasn’t already been around for over 100 years, NEVER buy a lifetime pass for ANYTHING.
Why it was $80 and I haven’t paid a dime more, lol. If I get 2-3 years out of it that’s extremely cheap compared to a $20/mo netflix subscription.
If a company has been around for 5 years and offers a lifetime warranty with a good product and another company has been around for 50, but offers only a year warranty I’m going with the newer company.
Even 2 years of warranty is better than 1.
RIP HBC
I bought a lifetime membership for $99 about 20 years ago. Never had one regret.
You got lucky. Companies can, and frequently do, either completely go under after a few years, or revamp their service, shutting down the old one, and saying “This is a NEW service. It requires a NEW lifetime membership.”
Unless it’s protected by a legal definition, the only thing between your lifetime membership and getting nothing at all is the good will of a company that does not care after they already have your money.
Even if they ARE an “honorable” company, and I use that term loosely, the moment someone buys them, they have absolutely no obligation to honor lifetime memberships. Most EULAs for lifetime memberships give the company total discretion to shut it down at any time for any reason.
Beyond that, $750 seems a LOT like a “kill the golden goose to get the eggs” move. Would look GREAT on a quarterly report of revenue, coming with huge executive bonuses, before selling and getting out, and letting someone else manage running the infrastructure on reduced revenue.
Bottom line? The lifetime membership MIGHT work out, but it’s a GAMBLE. It’s a gamble that you get in early enough to get your value out before the marks in a ledger indicate it’s not worth providing anything for you anymore. Meanwhile, doing the Open Source solution is free now, free forever, and has NO gambling component.
I wouldn’t pay that either for a lifetime account. However, in my situation Plex is head and shoulders a better solution than Jellyfish or Emby.
Just ask for the customer’s first born at this stage…
What is plex?
Sounds like an expensive immitation of Jellyfin
It was the first one around. Very mature, very solid piece of software. Has clients for everything.
The clients for everything and the fact that you don’t necessarily have to open up your router ports are the two only reasons why anybody would like Plex over Jellyfin.
Plexamp is super neat.
