I looked at and look at it as an investment. 13 years ago it could have been a good decision or a bad one.
The idea behind a lifetime membership is a means to spark fund raising, and I thought then "I use this a lot, it works for me I'm gonna pay for it".
So, you've got option. You can just roll your own, or go to jellyfin.
I'm one of the first people to complain about the incessant need to grow 20% a year to appease shareholders and how unsustainable that is. But I also realize as I said, stuff cost money and "just breaking even" will also grow in cost every year with everything else, so... Even in that perfect world you were describing, there would be an increase in cost applied to that project.
Much like I am sure you expect at the very least a cost of living raise each year. I'm also guessing you're glad your paycheck to bills ratio isn't what it was 20y ago. (or I can say, that for me that is true). I'm pretty happy my discretionary money is more now than it was then. I bet those developers also want that same thing.
Glad I bought the Plex Pass like 13 years ago. While I understand everyone seems to think everything should be free, I'm sure your boss wishes you worked for free too, but the world doesn't work that way.
I'm OK supporting products I use , and Plex is an example of this for me. It was a well spend $75 in 2013
It seems ytm is not supported in the app, but I'm not sure if that's a problem for my use case or not. If Google home "casts" requests then I think it'll work for me.
I sent them a message asking
Do WiiM Pro devices show up as speakers/streamable devices in apps (for casting) or can Google Home see them. Can they be assigned as the default speaker of a google home device?
I've got 11 CCAs in operation right now... That would be a pricey swap. Might be worth buying one and playing around. Also need to see if it supports yt music
My whole house audio runs off a product Google no longer makes unfortunately (Chromecast audios).
There's, no like-for-like new version, and no good replacement that I've found. Thankfully, this was a fixable problem and they fixed it vs. Just EOLing them.
I'm in the same boat. I'd say that my current setup is still not back to 'normal' since the issue with the certificates on the second gen devices.
I was able to cast to a CCA yesterday for a few hours after rebooting it again.
I have, over the years gone all in with the CCAs which is great when it works but sucks being tied to google. I have 11 active running CCAs connected to two separate 12 channel amps that have wired speakers throughout my house.
I use Google Mini's in those locations with their default speaker set to the CCA feeding that room's speakers. I also have groups "Basement" "Upstairs" "outside" etc that allow me to group them into larger zones. This is all very awesome when it works, but like we found out last week falls apart when there's a problem on that house of cards.
We can via apps directly manually 'cast' from YTM or Spotify or whatever (podcast app) or just ask the mini in the room to play music or play music on 'group speaker name'.
I got here from 'Casatunes' which when I was using it, was a PCIE card you installed in a windows machine and then installed their software (that ran on IIS) and it created a web service where the PCIE card (a soundblaster) had 6 3.5mm jacks (6 zones) as output, and then the software allowed you to assign 4 different inputs. Biggest issue I had with it, is as I moved from Sirius XM to streaming the service I opted to go with wasn't supported. Eventually I migrated to the CCA approach.
I'd love a way to setup 11 Pi's (although not at today's prices) with some open source protocol that replaced googles casting. The problem then would be getting some local speaker (google mini) to interact with it, or even your phone (spotify/ytm to 'cast' to that open protocol). Whatever the long term solution it would need to be easy to use or nobody but me will use it.
There are a few apps you can get for like Google TV (nvidia shield etc..) Like smartyoutubetv. But they've gotta be side loaded. So you need to install some way to get the APK on the device. It's all doable, but it's a pain.
I'd prefer just paying and losing the ads. Since I'm dreaming, I'd also like a check box to remove shorts all together from my experience.
The only problem I have with the premium subscription is the lack of ad control from the content creator. They should have to put them into some kind of wrapper that I, as a premium member can decide to enable or not. As a paying subscriber I should be able to watch it 100% ad free without going through sponsorblock, which is a big pita to do on set-top boxes.
I will sit through ads of the people I watch that are small and trying to make a buck above YT's pittance. OR, maybe YT could share a little of that sweet sweet profit with them and then not allow them to do their own ads (hahahahaha)
Ya, a PR nightmare for the next 15 minutes until the next unbelievable thing comes along and the ADD nature of people forgets windows is watching everything they do.
What are you asking? I bought a lifetime subscription to Plex pass.