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Comment on That's all folks, Plex is starting to charge for sharing

30p87@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

I never got the idea of selfhosting but paying (except for enterprise-grade support or donations) anyway.

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LandedGentry@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
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- LilB0kChoy@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  I run into you again! This time I get to wholeheartedly agree with you! You are spot on and nailed it.
  
  I use Plex for exactly the reasons you said because when I set it up I didn’t know anything about self hosting a media server and I wanted to share with family in other locations. I keep it because it’s so easy for my older, less tech savvy family members to access so I don’t have to be their support person for it.
  
  I’d consider Jellyfin if the end user access was more plug and play.
  
  The biggest thing about this is I don’t get why OP is so annoyed. If you have a Plex Pass you’re not impacted, you can still share and your users can still access your library for free, they can’t share with you without a Plex Pass but who cares.
  
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  - Ulrich@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    
    I’d consider Jellyfin if the end user access was more plug and play.
    
    It’s about as plug and play as any other website. They just open the app, type in the URL, and log in with their credentials and…that’s it.
    
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    MaggiWuerze@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    After setting up an elaborate VPN scheme
    
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    SMillerNL@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    What about combining sources? Because in plex I can search all libraries. Mine or external.
    
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  - Pornacount128@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    How exactly are you aquiring a folder full of media without technical know how in the first place? (Genuine question?)
    
    I suppose having Plex handle users is easier than creating an account but barely imo.
    
    Not shitting on Plex either, gotta do what you want I think the problems with this kind of thing is the change, people had a free service for years and now they have to change or pay. People hate change, lol
    
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    shutz@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    I’ve been “collecting” content for many years now. I learned most of what I needed to know about ripping and transcoding over the years, such that each time I need to deal with a new video format, or a new application, it’s not too hard, because I’m building on everything I’ve already learned.
    
    And each time I was learning new things, it’s not like there was a risk that all my previous content might suddenly become unusable or inaccessible.
    
    Meanwhile, a couple years ago I was finally able to build myself a proper NAS. While I know my way around Linux somewhat, I never kept a Linux-based daily driver because most of the apps I use regularly are on Windows, and I’m not confident about running them stably in Linux, nor am I confident about equivalent native Linux apps. And I’m not confident about setting up and administering my own server. My past experiences have shown me that whenever you need to do anything complex and specific, it involves a lot of work.
    
    So at a coworker’s suggestion, I got a Synology NAS that turned out to be a breeze to setup. And then I figured out how to get Plex server on there (not available in the Synology package manager, but the “manual” process turned out to be simple enough)
    
    And it just WORKS! it’s not perfect, but it’s mostly painless to use. I was happy paying for the lifetime Plex pass at the beginning, because it handles all the routing and discovery that needs to happen to allow me to stream to my phone, or to my parents’ TV when I’m visiting them.
    
    My next NAS might not be by Synology due to their recent announcement about supported hard drives, but I’ll probably be looking for something that “just works” because I can’t be bothered to learn how to be a sysadmin, and risk losing my stuff because I’m making the kinds of mistakes one makes as they’re learning.
    
    Just like, if I owned a car, I wouldn’t be digging under the hood to “tweak the timing” or replacing brake discs. I’d be happy paying someone I trust to do that work, leaving me with a car that “just works”.
    
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    Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    How many people with a folder full of media also know how to safety expose a home server to the internet? It would be less than 1%.
    
    Meanwhile, you don’t need network engineer levels of knowledge to run Plex for remote access. You download the software, choose the folder, and send your friends a share link.
    
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    CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    
    How exactly are you aquiring a folder full of media without technical know how in the first place? (Genuine question?)
    
    Because there are excellent setup guides out there that walk you through the process and allow you to set all this up without knowing anything about the individual steps you’re taking.
    
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  - realbadat@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    
    I’d consider Jellyfin if the end user access was more plug and play.
    
    Honestly if it could support mukti-server login cleanly, that would be the trick right there.
    
    That said, haven’t had any issues, but I did have to help family set it up the first time.
    
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- SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  I LOVE Jellyfin but can only imagine the amount of work I’d have to do if I tried to get my parents and in-laws successfully using it. We all just split the cost of lifetime Plex pass the last time it was on sale.
  
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  - flightyhobler@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    
    can only imagine the amount of work I’d have to do
    
    Insert url. Insert login credentials.
    
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    SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    I see you know as much about Jellyfin as you do about my in-laws.
    
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    superkret@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    What’s a url?
    
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    FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Insert virus on your server.
    
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- kratoz29@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  
  You know all the certs and security and port stuff you need to do? Plex does that. You just download the app, point it at your folders with media, and you’re all set both at your home and beyond it.
  
  I am just gonna read your comment until here, Plex does shit if you are CGNATED, and as it is 2025 I suppose most users are, I still needed to expose through IPv6 with a reverse proxy, using a VPS or a VPN to access my Plex Server, so yeah, Plex hasn’t helped me at all since many years ago with the noob friendly approach they have.
  
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- semperverus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Any time you rely on another company to handle your data, you are beholden to their whims, end of story. Don’t like what they’re doing? Too bad. Give up the convenience and host it yourself, or continue to be a slave to their corporate interests.
  
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  - LandedGentry@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
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    semperverus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Been slowly chipping away at those for the last decade (could have gone way faster but I’m lazy), and I’m almost completely google-free. I dont use any microsoft products at home (work forces me to), and Apple can eat my ass. My phone is a completely de-googled GrapheneOS device (I don’t have an issue relying on companies for hardware, just software), and hopefully in the future a Liberux or Pinephone linux phone.
    
    I self-host my own movies, music, and cloud storage. I also host my own chat service for friends and family, built on top of XMPP. The services i do use are generally very privacy respecting like Signal for people outside of my social sphere, or freedom respecting like Lemmy (mostly weaned off of reddit).
    
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    CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Or Lemmy
    
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- myersguy@lemmy.simpl.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Downvote without explanation. Nice!
  
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  - LandedGentry@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    [deleted]
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    ripcord@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    I assume they replied to you after someone downvoted you but before all the upvotes.
    
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- dutchkimble@lemy.lol ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Completely agree, and I think it’s fair for them to make it a paid feature. It’s kind of like using wireguard yourself to create a whole network vs Tailscale.
  
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- L3G1T1SM3@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Outside of portforwarding plex ports on your router though? But yeah plex does provide a service and it is asinine the pushback this is getting.
  
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9point6@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
For a good while, Plex was the only game in town that did the job well, and they put the transcoding feature behind the paywall.

Given it wasn’t that expensive for a lifetime pass a number of years ago (I remember it was cheaper than a game anyway) and they still seemed relatively user-centric at the time, many people like me felt like they were supporting developers building something that was useful to us.

I still run my Plex server since it’s not really costing me not to, but I’ve been running Jellyfin too for a little while and it more or less can do the same job these days

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- scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Yup, for the time it was worth it. I got about 7 years out of my “lifetime” plex pass, and I got it on sale. All in all, I won’t say the money was wasted.
  
  It’s 100% a waste if anyone pays for that BS monthly streaming fee though.
  
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  - FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Wait so you’ve got a lifetime plex pass already? Then literally nothing changes for you or anyone that is streaming from your server.
    
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    TrickDacy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Yeah, they’re just bitching. Pretty funny imo
    
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- Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  I put my chips (£100) on Emby, a Jellyfin fork. I don’t know much about specifics, but I believe Emby was borne out of classic workplace toxicity, in that Jellyfin was becoming too corporate so a couple devs forked off to keep it clean.
  
  I haven’t regretted my purchase. I can’t sell anyone on much either, because Emby does all the same as other services, except they’ve kept adding features while Plex kept doing the Google thing and taking them away. CPU transcoding is free I believe, as is remote streaming up to 10 devices for each user… Idk I paid pretty early on, but lifetime license is where it’s at. Subscriptions just open your asshole for greedy CEOs to fuck you
  
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  - AbidanYre@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    
    Emby was borne out of classic workplace toxicity, in that Jellyfin was becoming too corporate so a couple devs forked off to keep it clean.
    
    I think you have that backwards. Jellyfin is a fork of emby
    
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    Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Yeah; Emby was originally called MediaBrowser and was a free open source project. ‘MediaBrowsers’ developers decided to move to a closed source paid model to establish some more consistent income and support the dedicated developers they have. Thus Emby was born.
    
    Some users were really unhappy with this decision and forked MediaBrowsers last release to create Jellyfin. Their development has been quite a bit slower, but they’ve made some significant strides in recent years. It’s a more and more attractive option.
    
    One of my biggest reasons for sticking with Emby (besides already having a lifetime premier license) is the dedicated clients available on more platforms. Xbone is my primary streaming device, besides android: Emby has a dedicated xbox client you can install, where as Jellyfin you’ve gotta use the web browser.
    
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    Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Indeed I did, I removed my speculative comments…
    
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- ripcord@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  I’m pretty happy with Emby, which also lets me easily do remote streaming.
  
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Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
In the case of plex, it’s not 100% selfhosted. There’s a dependence on plexs public infrastructure for user management/authentication. They also help bypass NAT by proxying connections through their servers so you don’t have to setup port forwarding and can even easily escape double NAT situations.

I can understand paying for that convenience, but cost keeps rising while previously free features continue to get locked behind paywalls.

Tbh, having users required to authenticate with plex.tv was enough for me to look elsewhere. The biggest reason to self host for me is to remove dependency on public services.

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- deegeese@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  The central user management is not a feature, it’s a hook to force people to pay for self-hosted software.
  
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  - Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Can’t say I disagree.
    
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- TheButtonJustSpins@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  100% my experience as well. The external authentication requirement is what made my choose Jellyfin a couple years ago.
  
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chaospatterns@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
With Plex, you’re getting the easy ability to grant access to users. You get a single pane that can search across multiple Plex instances, and NAT traversal/port forwarding. Jellyfin makes you figure that out yourself.

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- NotKyloRen@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  It’s not exactly difficult if you use Tailscale or really any VPN. So I really don’t see the value for the cost; if you’re even considering self hosting a Plex server/instance, there’s a list of basic knowledge you should have or learn (like what you mentioned).
  
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  - chaospatterns@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Its not difficult for technical people like you or me, but my friend who just wants to watch their favorite show on my Plex on their TV won’t know how to traffic engineer the traffic over a Tailscale network to my network.
    
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    ripcord@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    I’m also not particularly happy with giving a bunch of people VPB access to my setup. Or other potential complications that come with that setup.
    
    I know enough to be able to lock it down, but I dont want the hassle. And other people will want it less.
    
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    ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    As long as the technical person does all of the setup on their end, the non technical person only has to enter a domain and port in their jellyfin client.
    
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  - FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    
    It’s not exactly difficult if you use Tailscale or really any VPN. So I really don’t see the value for the cost;
    
    Getting everyone that streams from your server to use tailscale or any other VPN every time they want to watch stuff from your server on any device they own is very difficult and basically a no-go. As someone that tried getting people who are using my plex server to use Tailscale so they could access my Overseer to request movies/shows, and basically no one would, it’s a deal breaker.
    
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  - Chronographs@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    I paid for a lifetime license years ago which is significantly cheaper than that.
    
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- TheButtonJustSpins@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  I will say, I really want someone* to make a Jellyfin aggregator so you can use multiple servers at once.
  
  *Not me.
  
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PP_BOY_@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
You can selfhost for free however you want but software developers have the right to ask for money to use their software. I selfhost about 60tb of media and have paid for Plex monthly for about 10 years now. They are still so far above the competition for ease-of-use that I wouldn’t even consider switching at this point, even to save $7/month.

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- scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  They have the right to ask, but I don’t have to pay. I’ve been playing with Jellyfin for about a month now, and I have to say, it’s just as easy as Plex is. The only thing I had to do myself was make my own users. In fact, I tried Jellyfin a few years ago and was unimpressed - now all I see is Plex making stuff to make advertisers happy while Jellyfin is adding stuff to make it’s users happy, to the point where I think Jellyfin has surpassed Plex.
  
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  - carl_dungeon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Jellyfin have native apps that are any good? I use plex heavily on ps5, appleTV, iOS, and people’s random star TVs, all of which have really good first class apps. I also support users that are not technically inclined, so they would need to be able to just install and app and log in.
    
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    scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    My experience with the apps has been good, I use the android TV one daily and I like it. The most I had to do was log in using the username/password and also the URL, but I plan on just giving that to my users so they know how to log in.
    
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    FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    No Jellyfin app on AppleTV or PS5.
    
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  - Cyber@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    But would you / do you voluntarily donate to Jellyfin’s development?
    
    I get it, it is (& a lot of things are) free… but at some point the developers need to recoup something…
    
    Otherwise Jellyfin’s development will eventually dry up as raw enthusiasm runs out.
    
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    scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Yup, like why I bought Plex pass at the time. I was happy to pay for the good work they were doing. They had nice uis, their code was stable, and new features rolled out regularly. I’ll happily be doing the same for jellyfin.
    
    Plex wants people to pay now for the same functionality. Big difference in my book.
    
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    Orygin@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Jellyfin refuses donations so even if I (not the one you’re responding to) wanted to, I would not be able to.
    
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  - PP_BOY_@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    All fair points, just depends on where your motivation to self host comes from. $7 for a monthly sub to Plex is frankly nothing to me, I don’t even have the charge linked to my budget spreadsheet. Between Plex, VPN, my usenet provider, private tracker memberships, electricity, etc., I’m not even sure I’m saving much money versus having one or two streaming subscriptions. In other words, I don’t do it to save money.
    
    PlexAmp alone justifies the cost even before some features got put behind a paywall but the fact that all my tech-illiterate friends can just download an app on their phones/consoles and watch whatever they want in a high bitrate off my computer makes it worth it for me. 9/10, I just watch films off VLC player anyway.
    
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  - Prunebutt@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Exactly. This is a bet that Plex is going to lose with the proliferation of Jellyfin.
    
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    pory@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    I dunno about that. Plex has lots of market share and plenty of “well I bought the pass when it was $60/$90” people aren’t gonna be personally affected by them locking more and more functionality behind the pass. So they’ll keep using it and recommending it and talking about it, and the centralized account management stuff (which Jellyfin won’t copy, because not having that is the point of selfhosting) will always be more convenient than setting up VPNs or other tools like external auth for Jellyfin sharing over the internet.
    
    Discourse about this everywhere always boils down to the same comment: “I bought the plex pass and honestly I’d do it again for $300 just to not deal with handling my own authentication system, plex remote play Just Works”. Or something like “I refuse to use a $20 HDMI android TV box instead of my ad-ridden smart TV or PlayStation 5, and those don’t have apps for JF”.
    
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- ripcord@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Eh, I find Emby pretty close to on-par at this point.
  
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Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Immich has a weird “buy a licence” model which literally does nothing.

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- Showroom7561@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Immich, I believe, is linked to Futo. And Futo has a license model that’s basically “if you like this app, and want to support the development, consider buying a license.”
  
  Sounds like it might be similar with Immich.
  
  Better than “donate to this project”, since a license seems more like the user is getting something out of it, even if it’s basically a glorified donation 😂
  
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- 30p87@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  I never even saw that, while running my own instance lol
  
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- asbestos@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Instantly bought the server license. Support your favorite FOSS, people.
  
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b3an@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
When they monitor what you watch and how you share it with, it’s enshittified. Fuck Plex. I used to be a lifetime drum thumper. Stopped a few years ago.

Plex doesn’t care about you, your comfort, ease. It wants your money and it wants to monitor and control what you do with your own data.

Fuck. That.

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TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Take HomeAssistant for example: you’re free to use it self-hosted, but as soon as you want to expose it securely through the Internet, there’s need from infrastructure that has costs, both materials and labor. In HomeAssistant’s case, it’s NabuCasa that does it, costs money, and helps fund the work of Home Assistant developers.

Having things free (libre) and open source is a blessing, but we have become entitled to have work of very specialized people for free. That’s not always feasible.

Another example, Zabbix, is totally open source and free, they only charge for support and training if you ask for them. It has worked for them for many years, but if they start to struggle with funding, I’d understand if they charged for it.

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- techwithjake@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Home Assistant doesn’t require to pay for anything at any point in time for any reason. If you want to expose your instance to the web, they have all the documents on how to do it yourself. There’s absolutely nothing “hidden” behind a paywall. The only reason to say is if you want Nabu Casa to handle exposing your instance to the internet and various cloud services like Google Assistant/Alexa. The reason to pay Nabu Casa is if you don’t have the technical know how (or lazy like me) and to help fund Home Assistant (which I want).
  
  That’s all to say that Plex and Home Assistant are not similar in their pay scheme. It’d be more akin if Jellyfin started charging users to allow a one click way to stream outside the home with no obligation to.
  
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