Welcoming the incoming dowvotes for correcting your comment just like the many similar comments and posts I’ve seen on Reddit, but this is purely a configuration issue.

Transcoding on local network is allowed without a subscription. If you are running your own DNS server (like pihole or unbound) you need to configure an internal “plex.direct” record. You also need to uncheck an option to “treat your WAN IP as internal” option which corrects double NAT issues.

I have yet to see a need to move away from Plex. I paid for the cheap lifetime sub over a decade ago at this point and everyone I invite has no complaints and has not had to pay Plex a dime. I will check out Jellyfin at some point if Plex makes things more difficult in time, but for now these articles are literally just rage bait in the homelab ecosystem. They enacted this back in April of 2025 already!