Plex Accounts Getting Disabled

78 points by edsimpson 1 year ago | 93 comments
  • loughnane 1 year ago
    This is why it's better to control your software. Firms change over time and your interests are likely to diverge from theirs. This is _especially_ true when we're talking about media-related software which is always contentious in terms of copyright.

    Jellyfin isn't as feature-rich or polished as Plex, but I rest assured knowing that I'm the one who controls my installation.

    • 4ggr0 1 year ago
      I just wanted to write that I'm glad that I'm using Jellyfin at home :)

      No unnecessary online accounts, just "my" media on my server.

      • politelemon 1 year ago
        What's a good setup to run jellyfin on. I currently run it on a Linux desktop. I tried running it on a raspberry pi, but it felt like it was struggling. Did I expect too much?
        • freedomben 1 year ago
          It depends on whether you are willing to trade storage space for compute. The raspberry pi struggles happen when real-time transcoding is taking place. If you change the settings or pre-transcode everything, then it will easily run on the pi.

          If you would rather use compute than storage, then a desktop is a good plan. I run my jellyfin on my desktop and use cloudflare tunnel for making it available online as needed. That said, me and my family are the only users of my instance, so access through the internet is not the primary way. I only set that up for when we are traveling.

          • happymellon 1 year ago
            I've found that a cheap Dell Wyse 5070 is more than sufficient at less than £50.

            Pentium J5005, only quad core and no hyper threading, but it is Gemini Lake refresh so can do QuickSync without actually using the CPU. I believe it is something like 10 realtime 1080p re-encoding streams simultaneously. 2-4 4k re-encodes but I've not tested it that much.

            Multiple USB 3.1 for hooking D4-400s to for ZFS, and two ram slots that claim a max of 8 GB but mines doing fine with 32GB.

            • RSHEPP 1 year ago
              I have a Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini running next to me that is great. Able to setup hardware acceleration on it for any transcoding needs too. It's nice and small which was the big selling point. You can probably go cheaper, but I got it around Black Friday with some nurse discounts that Lenovo gives (thanks wife).
              • PokestarFan 1 year ago
                Jellyfin is fine if you direct stream only, but any form of transcoding will kill your server. It is a bit hard to get other people to download the desktop Jellyfin Media Player or Infuse on iOS, and I don't think Android has a version of the app with massive codec support.
                • pdimitar 1 year ago
                  I have no detailed info for you but heard from people on Reddit that depending on what the host's CPU and GPU support, Jellyfin will do transcoding which yeah, it proves too much for a RPi.
                  • beart 1 year ago
                    You can use something like "Acer Aspire XC - Desktop Intel Celeron J4125 2GHz 4GB RAM 256GB SSD W10H" which is sometimes on sale on ebay for $100-150. Then throw a few small upgrades in there (larger drive, maybe some memory) and you will have a very quiet, low power media center.
                    • 4ggr0 1 year ago
                      I'm running it in a docker container on a small server with a GTX 1050Ti and a AMD Ryzen 3 3200G with 16GB RAM.

                      Was more complicated than I thought to initially pass the GPU through to the Container, but it runs fine and lets me watch movies on any device I own.

                      • loughnane 1 year ago
                        I had it running on a Synology DS218+ (Celeron J3355) with no problems for a long time. Now I've got it running on a framework mainboard (i7-1165G7) with a bunch of other things.
                    • sspiff 1 year ago
                      I have 3 paid subscription services (Disney+, Prime and Netflix).

                      But most of the time we just use Jellyfin. It's just better UX, even if it lacks polish. Stuff is in predictable places, in one app. I don't need to scroll past 2 full screens of generated lists with suggested content to get to my personal hand made watch list.

                      I'm fully ready to drop subscription streaming and go back to buying DVD or Bluray box sets to rip at this point.

                      • loughnane 1 year ago
                        I'm the same way. I want a digital shelf, not an ever-changing curation.
                      • NoMoreNicksLeft 1 year ago
                        > This is why it's better to control your software. Firms change over time and your interests are likely to diverge from theirs.

                        Agreed, but I think I signed up back in 2013 or so, when there were few (or zero? can't remember) alternatives.

                        • loughnane 1 year ago
                          I started on plex too. Started switching around '21 and now I'm only on Jellyfin.

                          It stinks when a good piece of software goes bad, but if it does I start moving away. The thing that started me moving away was the first time my internet went out and I couldn't access my media stored in my living room because I couldn't reach Plex's login server.

                        • toomuchtodo 1 year ago
                          How much would it cost to polish Jellyfin? $100k-$500k? Polish public goods, defends against corporate mechanics.
                          • tentacleuno 1 year ago
                            I'm curious how you would define "polish" here: do you mean spending time on fixing current features as opposed to adding new ones? If so, I can see the argument there: a lot of software tends to prioritize new features over long-term stability.

                            On the other hand, I've had a fairly good experience with Jellyfin -- it's mostly been a set-and-forget solution.

                            • toomuchtodo 1 year ago
                              Sure, by "polish" I mean to get it somewhat close to parity with Plex. If it's great as is, perhaps no additional polish is required. I prefer to invest in open source tools that will remain open, whenever possible. It is a component of defending against enshittification, because that which has been built cannot then be revoked or gated.

                              At the end of the day, it’s always about control.

                          • safety1st 1 year ago
                            Whatever's going on at Plex HQ is very weird. I've used it for years and when I first set it up, it WAS software I controlled (or so I thought). I mean it was open source, you installed it locally, and there was no such thing as a Plex account or paid services at the time. Eventually they added the account, the upsells and the nags and scary messages which all led you towards getting an account, but I avoided doing so until last year.

                            When I finally relented and registered an account all kinds of bugs cropped up, like my local media started streaming through their server and became unplayable as a result. There was no clear way to reverse it. Around the same time their Android app started requiring a Plex account to function (not sure if that was just an update they pushed, or some flag that got flipped by me using an account once).

                            I think I ultimately just nuked my Plex install, reinstalled, and never attempted to log into a Plex account again. I live in perpetual certainty now that one day an auto-update will make Plex simply melt down and stop working one way or another for me. It's not really a big deal, I will just have to set up Jellyfin and live with it when that day arrives because it can't possibly be worse than this experience, right? Needless to say I will never give Plex Inc. a single penny after watching this enshittification.

                          • Someone1234 1 year ago
                            Unfortunately I've had nothing but headaches with Jellyfin's media streamer. I'm doing a local Jellyfin to their AppleTV client, and it is just glitchy as heck.

                            Plex is almost as good as Netflix's player, meaning completely reliable. Jellyfin's server maybe good, but their clients leave a lot to be desired.

                            The main problem with Jellyfin is that there isn't much money to pay for development. Open Source is great, but developing a half dozen or more clients to unfun work.

                            • Machado117 1 year ago
                              Use Infuse instead of the Jellyfin client that way you avoid having to transcode media. I'm running jellyfin on a raspberry pi and I have no problems whatsoever.
                              • loughnane 1 year ago
                                I've had very few problems (though I'm using an NVIDIA shield), but yeah that polish is what made Plex appealing at first.
                                • pdimitar 1 year ago
                                  Hm? Can you share what's your problem with Jellyfin? I am actually working on hosting my own media library through it lately.
                                  • sneedbro14 1 year ago
                                    Try Infuse Pro, it works perfectly with a Jellyfin server.
                                  • sumtechguy 1 year ago
                                    If you do not need the 'streaming' bit and are ok running locally KODI is what Plex originally branched from.
                                    • thiht 1 year ago
                                      Kodi is trash on Android TV though, it’s easily the worst UI I’ve ever had the misfortune to use in my whole life.

                                      It might work better on other platforms, I hope.

                                      • crtasm 1 year ago
                                        Works great on RPi and Windows.
                                  • newsclues 1 year ago
                                    I know people with large networks of people paying $10/month for access to pirated content.

                                    I have my own Jellyfin server with pirated content for myself and mother, but I don't feel good charging money for "stolen" things.

                                    Stealing to eat is one thing, stealing bread to sell for profit is different.

                                    • mkeedlinger 1 year ago
                                      I mostly agree and wouldn't do it myself, but as a consumer what are the odds this is just a better experience? All content, very few restrictions
                                      • newsclues 1 year ago
                                        Oh I know it’s better, I’m always happy to teach others how to self host and am happy to trade content.

                                        But I won’t profit from piracy. I rather be a customer in a fair market.

                                    • beart 1 year ago
                                      VLC player paired with a network share does pretty much everything I need to watch local media. I have a Jellyfin instance, and I do like it, but I often find myself falling back to VLC for one reason or another.
                                      • lostmsu 1 year ago
                                        Versions of VLC for "weaker" devices like Fire TV do not open network shares sadly.
                                        • beart 1 year ago
                                          That's true. Years back, you could cast to Fire TV from the android VLC app. But I recall it not working very well, and I think support for Chrome Cast was entirely removed at some point? I don't know, I completely gave up on the Fire TV sticks. Calling them "weaker" is even being charitable, with all the issues I constantly ran into.
                                        • haunter 1 year ago
                                          And it works on locked down hardware too, Apple TV for example. Use that for a long time and it's perfect
                                        • sphars 1 year ago
                                          I keep both Plex and Jellyfin installed on my server with the same media. Plex is easier to navigate for my family than Jellyfin (specifically their respective Roku apps). But the way that Plex is pushing their monetization with ads and now rentals, and now shenanigans like this, I feel it's time to fully migrate to Jellyfin. I should learn Roku development so I can contribute to their app...
                                          • op00to 1 year ago
                                            I’ve never seen an ad on Plex. Never saw anything about rentals.
                                            • sphars 1 year ago
                                              Yeah, like the sibling comment said, I meant ads for Plex's own services. Whenever they rollout these new "features" I see them on my home screen or in the navigation and have to turn it off. I'm more frustrated in how aggressive they are in pushing these new avenues of revenue; I just want to watch my own media and nothing else.
                                              • Repulsion9513 1 year ago
                                                Really? You've never seen an ad on Plex? All the ads for their new features? All the ads for the latest ad-supported movie or "channel" they're carrying that they keep trying to find new ways to slip into your pins and/or home page? Do you think they added the Discover page out of the goodness of their heart?
                                                • op00to 1 year ago
                                                  Nope. Never saw any of those. Turned them all off. All I ever see is my content.
                                              • QuadmasterXLII 1 year ago
                                                ... Ads?

                                                People are going to the effort of downloading content, self hosting it, and then watching ads?

                                                Stallman protect us what

                                                • shepherdjerred 1 year ago
                                                  Plex certainly doesn't have ads for your local content. It does provide its own streaming service, and Plex has gotten much more aggressive with features like that, but you can pretty easily disable all of it via the UI.

                                                  Plex today feels like Plex in 2015 if you spend a few minutes tweaking. I agree the situation is not great, but it seems that this happens with most software owned by a for-profit company.

                                              • dotnet00 1 year ago
                                                The linked thread is such a good example of why I quit reddit, the discourse is often so frustratingly stupid, there are always contrarians acting like "they shouldn't ban you for X"="they can't ban you for X", and then there's the unnecessary whining about upvotes and downvotes.

                                                Plex is such a weird project though, they should've been able to see that they'd have to start clamping down on the sharing as they went in the direction of being a more typical streaming service. I wonder, did they think that their users would just accept that? or did they figure that they could pull in more typical users fast enough to sustain themselves?

                                                My personal Plex server is just single user and I only connect to it from my own desktop, phone, tablet or laptop, so I'm not too worried. I wouldn't mind using jellyfin for video, but for music I haven't really come across a player comparable to plexamp. The AI driven "DJ" options are a very nice idea.

                                                • op00to 1 year ago
                                                  Also the outright lies in that thread made it obvious to me my decision to quit participating on Reddit was correct.
                                                • op00to 1 year ago
                                                  If you look at the thread, there’s at least one person who claims to not be taking money for their Plex server that was confronted with a screenshot of them selling access to their Plex server.

                                                  Stop selling stuff you don’t have the right to sell, and no one will bat an eye at you.

                                                • cat_plus_plus 1 year ago
                                                  Use Emby, it's much more focused on accessing your own files, while Plex has shifted towards ad supported movies which are accessible in a million other ways. I assume that's why they are cancelling users who actually use their own stuff.
                                                  • RobotToaster 1 year ago
                                                    Emby already went closed source, it will do the same.
                                                    • cat_plus_plus 1 year ago
                                                      Maybe? But I will still have my media and will see what is the best alternative if that happens. Maybe my WD NAS software will also go to seed and I will have to roll my own NAS. But what do I gain by giving up on the best experience now out of fear that this experience might degrade later? It's not like watching movies takes a huge learning curve. In the meantime, there are some incentives for Emby to keep their users happy and recommending their stuff, like I just did. If they don't, it's their loss.
                                                    • SV_BubbleTime 1 year ago
                                                      Emby can and will if it becomes large enough have the same issues as Plex.

                                                      Enshitificaion comes for everyone. At least that has been our experience with ZIRP, now that it’s paused we’ll see.

                                                      But in the case of sharing media with strict copywrite, it might be better to host your own.

                                                      • pdimitar 1 year ago
                                                        Nope, Jellyfin IMO.
                                                      • wantlotsofcurry 1 year ago
                                                        Speaking of Plex alternatives, does anyone have a great alternative to Plexamp (Plex's local music player)? [1]

                                                        [1]: https://www.plex.tv/plexamp/

                                                        • 10729287 1 year ago
                                                          Navidrome + Play:Sub on ios and the awesome supersonic for the desktop (https://github.com/dweymouth/supersonic). This is the way.

                                                          Prior to this, take some time to tag your files with Musicbrainz Picard.

                                                          • MikusR 1 year ago
                                                            https://symfonium.app/
                                                          • leshokunin 1 year ago
                                                            If you don't mind spending, Roon is the gold standard. I got a lifetime account at the start of covid and it transformed how I consume music.
                                                            • shepherdjerred 1 year ago
                                                              What's wrong with Plexamp? I used it for a few months a year or two ago and I loved it.
                                                              • wantlotsofcurry 1 year ago
                                                                You need a Plex Server to run it (unless I'm missing something).
                                                                • shepherdjerred 1 year ago
                                                                  Oh, I see. I thought you were wanting to use some other music client for Plex. You're right that you need a Plex instance to use Plexamp.
                                                                • 10729287 1 year ago
                                                                  > What's wrong with Plexamp?

                                                                  Plex, the company.

                                                              • globular-toast 1 year ago
                                                                Imagine giving some company the ability to disable a server on your own network.
                                                                • unixfg 1 year ago
                                                                  Is this perhaps people who don’t have port forwarding setup and are costing Plex money on their proxy?
                                                                • pshirshov 1 year ago
                                                                  Jellyfin.
                                                                  • cebert 1 year ago
                                                                    Whenever I see developments like this to a product, I can’t help but think of Cory Doctorow‘s stages of enshitification (https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys).
                                                                    • crtasm 1 year ago
                                                                      >developments

                                                                      Seems to be enforcing their existing ToS, not a change to the product?

                                                                      • redserk 1 year ago
                                                                        Why? Bit too early to pull the trigger on declaring this "enshittification". We have yet to see if this was an intentional product decision or a script gone awry.

                                                                        The term has been eagerly overused to indicate "things I don't like" and is quickly losing it's meaning.

                                                                      • 1 year ago
                                                                        • horacemorace 1 year ago
                                                                          This is the reason I roll my eyes when millennials talk about setting up “their plex” or “their discord”. It’s not your sandcastle if someone else owns the sandbox.
                                                                          • huimang 1 year ago
                                                                            The youngest millenial is about 27. So replace "millenial" with gen-z or gen alpha, but really I would just delete the first sentence you have there. You can make an opinionated statement without arbitrarily dragging a cohort of people.
                                                                            • 2024throwaway 1 year ago
                                                                              Many “millennials” are over 40 now.
                                                                            • matheusmoreira 1 year ago
                                                                              It's profoundly annoying how people flock to these "easy" corporate owned services instead of doing it right the first time around. Network effects make it very hard to get out later and they also make it so others have to get with the program if they want to participate.
                                                                              • ajford 1 year ago
                                                                                Sure, but it's also profoundly annoying to spend your workday deploying and maintaining services, then come home and have to do the same.

                                                                                I ran Jellyfin some years back, when I was evaluating Plex/Emby/Jellyfin after switching from Kodi, and I probably spent a week or more chasing random issues and crashes. So I put it on the shelf and picked Plex since it was nearly 0 effort and it made the family happy given how easy it was to use (and didn't crash).

                                                                                Of course people want something that's easy to set up and use. A lot of people want a tool, not a new hobby. And the best way to accomplish that is unfortunately to optimize for ease of setup and stability instead of new features. But that can be hard for an open-source project when everyone is asking for the new thing a for-profit company added to their product.

                                                                              • tenuousemphasis 1 year ago
                                                                                What is the "right" way to access your media library from anywhere and share it with anyone?
                                                                            • cqqxo4zV46cp 1 year ago
                                                                              I’d roll my eyes at any grumpy old language pedant that thinks that that I don’t understand how computers works. I’m the lower edge of millennial and I’ve been working as a software developer for ten years. Move on.
                                                                              • SV_BubbleTime 1 year ago
                                                                                Discord is the craziest one imo. You have zero control and that has not yet worked out once anywhere on the internet but ok, here we go again.
                                                                                • dw_arthur 1 year ago
                                                                                  I always feel a little dirty when I have to go on a discord to find some information.
                                                                                  • lelandbatey 1 year ago
                                                                                    Eh, there's a big difference; "their Plex" is software they download which uses their hardware and data they control to provide a service. There are alternatives (jellyfin) which allows a person to get the same functionality using their same hardware and the same data they control.

                                                                                    Discord though you're very right about, discord is more MSN messenger than it is IRC.

                                                                                  • alsetmusic 1 year ago
                                                                                    I remember when Apple gave iTunes a streaming feature so you could listen to your music on the go. You could connect to your home computer and access your entire library. That feature was gone almost immediately due to people broadcasting to strangers on the internet. Stupid / greedy / thoughtless people stole that feature from me.

                                                                                    Don't be surprised when acts against corporate interests get slapped. Be surprised when they don't.

                                                                                    • matheusmoreira 1 year ago
                                                                                      > Don't be surprised when acts against corporate interests get slapped.

                                                                                      Because corporate interests are the most important thing to consider on this earth, right? We've got felony contempt of business model laws, after all.

                                                                                      • CharlesW 1 year ago
                                                                                        I think you're misremembering what iTunes Home Sharing did, since "broadcasting to strangers" was never supported in iTunes.