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.
I'm sorry, what? How does me hosting my content on my server connected to the Internet with a connection I pay for, to a remote client that I own and also connected to the Internet that I pay for, "use their servers and network bandwidth"? How is basic remote streaming functionality that existed for the entire time I've used it "chew up a huge amount of development time"?
Their development time - the things they're bleeding self-hosted users to fund through this change - is entirely focused on their AVOD-hosting, SVOD-hub garbage that every other streaming startup is doing.
If youre using something like a VPN to connect to your local network you wouldn't need to pay. What you're basically paying to support is the ability to connect to your server from anywhere in the world in a secure manner.
This means they're managing the routing and security elements (on their hardware), which isn't offered by any open source software. The only software I know comes close would be syncthing where people host routing servers.