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Comment on Plex To Launch a Store For Movies and TV Shows

I was trying to think how Plex thinks this is going to play out, knowing that this move will piss off their customer base. Then I realized, this isn’t a play for Plex’s existing customer base. This is a play for their users “friends and family” that are enjoying their customer’s shared libraries already.

Their ‘customer’ base has for many many years been developing a user base for Plex of technologically naive people with Plex apps installed but could never run their own server. If Plex knows, for example, that for every paying Plex customer there’s three other users pulling from someone’s library, that’s a huge opportunity for them to convert those users to paying customers.

Everyone that set up a Plex server and then shared it with your tech-phobic parents, cousins, friends, etc… made this possible.

I don’t like it but I can’t argue with the logic from Plex here.

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avidamoeba@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Is that bad though? I don’t mind renting a movie I really like even if my friend has it on their Plex. Especially if it’s from a small studio. Currently I do that via Google TV. Plex Inc being a small private company might use the money better than a publicly traded giant. I wouldn’t mind my friends and family spending a few bucks on it either.

Of course if Plex starts enshitifying existing private streaming features, that’ll be another matter altogether.

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- lambda@programming.dev ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah, I’ve been switched to using Jellyfin anyways. I hope they can do this successfully. They haven’t been the best for a while anyways…
  
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  - avidamoeba@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’ll probably trial Jellyfin too in preparation to migrate the family should push come to shove.
    
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cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Yikes this is a good theory. Eventually we will be snuffed out. Sharing will stop. Etc.

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- billwashere@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Well maybe not. Without the shared libraries I doubt the tech-phobic users will stick around for movies they can likely find other places, especially since I doubt Plex gets very good deals for content.
  
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- ashok36@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I wouldn’t be so sure if that. It’s possible, yeah, but if my theory is right they see the library sharing as the carrot to get normies to download the plex app onto their roku or apple TV.
  
  Pivoting to a streaming only app would close off that avenue for user acquisition permanently.
  
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skozzii@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I like this theory and I hope your logic check out. I am a little worried that I will have to make a change soon.

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