this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025

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1081

Plex is locking remote streaming behind a subscription in April (www.plex.tv)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

630 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Well, looks like my decision to stick with Kodi and never bother with Plex is about to pay dividends.

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[–] [email protected] 147 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I'm not pirating a bunch of shows just to pay Plex for the privilege of watching it.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Also remember to give them your credit card, name and address for the privilege of pirating the content.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I moved on to jellyfin after I found out the hard way Plex servers need to authenticate for use. I'm sure by now there are ways to set up offline authentication but I already didn't like the idea of paying monthly to stream my own content from my own machine. It just didn't make sence to me. Jellyfin isn't perfect, or as flashy as Plex, but it works, looks fine, and its free, not counting a much deserved donation to the devs .

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[–] [email protected] 71 points 1 day ago (6 children)

As a plex pass lifetime user, this doesn't change anything for me.

I am, however, blown away that the price went from $75 CDN to $350 CDN over the last 10 years!! That's just insane!

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[–] [email protected] 88 points 1 day ago (34 children)

If you don't like the price there's always jellyfin.

Got to say that I have been very happy with it.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 day ago (13 children)

Why would anyone even used Plex since we have jellyfin?

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[–] [email protected] 150 points 1 day ago (27 children)

As a result I imagine more users will look at other offerings such as Jellyfin.
https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin
https://jellyfin.org/

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 day ago

I've been meaning to set up a homeserver with plex recently but will defnitely go for jellyfin now that I read this thread.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 day ago

Yeah, my lifetime Jellyfin subscription wasn’t quite that much, thankfully. 😆

[–] [email protected] 104 points 1 day ago (10 children)

I have a lifetime plex pass so this does not really affect me but I expect the trend of degrading experience to continue. I would have switched to Jellyfin a long time ago but I am dreading contacting everyone I share with and getting them migrated.

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[–] [email protected] 77 points 1 day ago (41 children)

Glad I bought the Plex Pass like 13 years ago. While I understand everyone seems to think everything should be free, I'm sure your boss wishes you worked for free too, but the world doesn't work that way.

I'm OK supporting products I use , and Plex is an example of this for me. It was a well spend $75 in 2013

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 day ago (8 children)

Nah. Cool that you think that, though. The moment they started charging for what was a free service, they lost me. I have gigabit internet. The only reason i used their service to begin with was ease of use.

Hot take but maybe everything doesn't need to be an infinitely expanding business. Just imagine for a second that it's fine for something to just break even, pay for the few mainteners salaries and not expand the business at all ever. I know that I just uttered the cardinal evil under capitalism but fucking seriously. The primary userbase of plex is pirates. The whole incentive is not having to pay for a streaming service. Charging money for it is just torpedoing your entire userbase. The entire appeal of Plex was it not charging money.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Jellyfin

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So basically.. this is a blatant cash grab, and a nearly 200% one depending on the level of service you pay/paid for. Wonder how long it will be before the lifetime pass is discontinued and everyone gets forcibly moved over to a monthly subscription model