cross-posted from: https://poptalk.scrubbles.tech/post/2333639

I was just forwarded this someone in my household who watches our server. That’s it folks. I’ve been a hold out for a long time, but this is honestly it.

They want me to pay to stream content that I bought from my hardware transcoded also on my hardware.

I’ll say it. As of today, I say Plex is dead. Luckily I’ve been setting up Jellyfin, I guess it’s time to make it production ready.

Edit: I have a Plex Pass. More comments saying “Just buy a plex pass” are seriously not getting it. I have a Plex Pass and my users are still getting this.

And for the thousandth person who wants to say the same things to me:

  • YES I know I’m unaffected as a Plex Pass owner.
  • My users were immediately angry at it, which made me angry. Our users don’t understand what plex pass is, and they shouldn’t have to, that’s why I had it. The fact that they were pinged even though it should have kept working is horribly sloppy
  • Plex is still removing functionality. I don’t care that “People should pay their fair share”. If Plex wants to put every new feature behind a paywall, that’s completely okay. They are removing functionality.
    • “But they have cloud costs”. Remote streaming is negligible to them. It’s a dynamic DNS service. Plex client logs in, asks where server is, plex cloud responds with the IP and port of where server is located. That’s it.
    • “Good luck finding another remote streaming” - Again, Plex just opens up an IP and port. Jellyfin also just opens up an IP and port (Hold on jellyfin folks I know, security, that’s a separate conversation). All “remote streaming” is is their dynamic dns. Literal pennies to them. Know what actually is costing them money? Hosting all of that ad-supported “free” content that they’re probably losing money on.

In short, I don’t care how you justify it. Plex is doing something shitty. They’re removing functionality that has been free for years. I’m not responding to any more of your comments repeating the same arguments over and over.

  • sudneo@lemm.eeEnglish
    11·
    24 hours ago

    Well, as an application it has a huge attack surface, it’s also able to download stuff from internet (e.g., subs) and many people run it on NAS. I run jellyfin in docker, I didn’t do a security assessment yet, but for sure it needs volume mounts, not sure about what capabilities it runs with (surely NET_BIND, and I think DAC_READ_SEARCH to avoid file ownership issues with downloaders?). Either way, I would never expose a service like that on the internet.

      • sudneo@lemm.eeEnglish
        11·
        16 hours ago

        No that’s the thing. Plex can also use their infra as a tunneling system. You can have remote streaming without exposing Plex publicly and without VPN. It is slow though.

        • Nibodhika@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          7 minutes ago

          Plex doesn’t even work properly unless you set it up with network mode host, otherwise it always considers your service to be remote because they’re not on the same network as anything you try to watch it from. Jellyfin requires lots less access, and you’re so worried about it you can add a Tailscale mod to the container and isolate it completely so it’s only accessible via Tailscale similarly to what you think Plex is doing (which doesn’t harden security as much as you think)