this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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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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[–] rekabis@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago (13 children)

I don’t like it, but it’s a pragmatic decision.

Hosting for a simple website can be as little as a few bucks a month. That’s easy for any project to absorb, even if they are open-source with no one pulling a paycheque.

Streaming requires high-performance, high-bandwidth machines that cost anywhere from several dozen dollars to several hundred dollars a month. You build a resilient high-availability network, and you could easily be looking at several tens of thousands of dollars a month.

That isn’t easy to absorb, even for a for-profit company with clearly-defined revenue streams.

Some people want everything for free, but free doesn’t pay the bills.

Full disclosure: I don’t use the streaming feature. I prefer to grab actual copies to drop onto my NAS. I also don’t share to friends and family, as I am the only one I know of who uses Plex.

[–] CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world 28 points 1 day ago (8 children)

Streaming requires high-performance, high-bandwidth machines that cost anywhere from several dozen dollars to several hundred dollars a month. You build a resilient high-availability network, and you could easily be looking at several tens of thousands of dollars a month.

Are you under the impression that Plex uploads the movie files to their servers and then transcodes them there, or something?

And the hard work happens on your own hardware. All Plex's servers are doing is acting as a signaling server, but no media or routed through Plex's servers.

[–] kogasa@programming.dev 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It depends on if you use the "relay" feature. If your server is accessible from the outside it shouldn't be using this though.

First thing I disable.

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