this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2025
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Plex has confirmed that it will require a Remote Watch Pass or Plex Pass for remote streaming on its TV apps. The change is going into effect for the Roku app first, followed by all other TV apps and third-party clients in 2026.

Earlier this year, Plex increased its pricing for Plex Pass and stopped supporting all options for free remote streaming in the Plex apps, such as adding a custom server connection in the app settings. The company said at the time, "The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature." That's also when Plex introduced the Remote Watch Pass as a less expensive way to enable remote streaming again.

Plex is now rolling out the remote watch changes to its Roku TV app. If you have Plex Pass, or the owner of the server you're streaming from has Plex Pass, you don't need to do anything. Otherwise, if you are streaming on a different network from the server's home network, you need Plex Pass or Remote Watch Pass.

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[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 1 points 8 minutes ago

I was wondering how long before they dropped that other shoe.

I bought Plexpass when it was $70. Got my money out of it. The centralized login, ssl, caching and proxy are probably worth paying something for.

That said, I've mostly walked away from them over privacy concerns and an utter refusal to add community-requested features while removing actively used features.

[–] ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Fuuuuuck plex

For the past like 5-7 years I’ve said consistently that the second plex took VC money the writing was on the wall and that they would eventually and consistently take actions hostile towards their consumers and doing what they can to both move to SaaS and alienate lifetime pass users as well as distance themselves from their core purpose of sharing collections of pirated media hidden behind the thinly veneered “for tobacco use only” bullshit of “actually you can just rip your own physical media”

Every time I post, whether it’s banning the ability to serve on hetzner, putting ads all over the app and starting to collect data, increasing monetization, etc and talk about how it’s inherently going to continue getting worse plex users inevitably come out of the woodwork to be like “well this is overblown, plex is so good it’s worth getting fucked, jellyfin is slightly harder since it’s not backed by 40 million dollars of devil money that demands endless growth until the product is ruined”

As long as those people who are willing to get walked all over exist, that demand a slightly easier existence over one that serves them, every product and service will continue to get worse and worse while a small group of people get fat off of endless subscriptions

Reposting something from r/Plex because the mods are bitch-babies with minimal changes:

If you pay money for something, you do not own it. It is not entirely yours.

You pay, that shit's proprietary, you didnt make it, you can't see the insides. Why would any self respecting sociopath give you something without including a backdoor, data logging/tracking, and a string to pull it back?

You steal something, or download more anonymously, it isn't immediately connected to you, it may not have the backdoors activated, and you probably cut that string when you acquired it. You might even have to fuck around in the guts and modify shit so it can't be remotely bricked tracked etc.

Applies to physical goods up to and including housing too. The state wants me out, I'm out. Can happen for a lot of reasons, and no amount of obedience or investment keeps you 100% safe. In a squat, ive already defended myself, proven their power, at least what they're willing to exercise, cannot dislodge me. The place is truly mine.

You buy from the company store, you don't own shit.

[–] brax@sh.itjust.works 7 points 6 hours ago

I regret buying a Plex pass years ago when the project was still pretty good. I wanted to support the devs, but now I hope that they continue to develop this shit app so they don't move on to ruin things like Jellyfin.

[–] PhAzE@lemmy.ca 9 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

I'm sticking with plex personally. I have a lifetime plex pass already so no one else needs a pass to stream from my server. Aka, this changes nothing for me or my users.

[–] brax@sh.itjust.works 8 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

This is total "fuck you, got mine" energy. You're part of the problem. As somebody else who owns a Plex pass, I'm done with their bullshit. I downloaded Plex as a way to serve my content to my devices. These morons lost their way a while ago and became a dump, and clearly it's not getting any better.

Hopefully this latest big-brain move of theirs drives more users off their shit platform to one that's better.

But you have a Plex pass, so I'm sure it won't affect you when the money disappears and the company folds lol.

[–] rabidhamster@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

I mean, if you already have a lifetime pass, it's not like you're giving them anymore money or supporting them from here on out. Not sure how that's "fuck you, got mine." Who exactly is being fucked here? It would make more sense if Plex had a limited number of passes that people hoarded early on like boomers with property. In this case the financial side of things is already a done deal, and doesn't somehow deprive others of a resource.

[–] brax@sh.itjust.works 0 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

You're saying you bought a pass, fuck all the people that didn't buy a pass. Sure other people could buy a pass, but why would you want to encourage them to do that and incentivize the further enshitifcaiton of Plex?

[–] rabidhamster@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I don't think OP said literally any of that, so I'm confused. OP already has a lifetime Plex pass, so OP is sticking with plex, since as the server owner, a plex pass covers everyone streaming from their server.

I'm still not sure who's being fucked in the context of what OP wrote. Either way, nothing OP is doing is financially supporting Plex, because that ship already sailed back when they bought a lifetime pass.

[–] brax@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I've been using Plex form 2009-2010 and have watched it slowly enshitify. The purpose of the software was to allow people to host their own media server and making it accessible anywhere. The pass was a nice way to thank the devs and get some small perks. Now it seems like they are yet again stripping features from basic users.

The op's stance of "I have a pass so it doesn't affect me" is further supporting and encouraging the enshitifcaiton of what used to be a good service for anybody. Jellyfin seems to be the way to go now.

[–] rabidhamster@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 28 minutes ago* (last edited 27 minutes ago)

What would you like OP to do? Nothing they're doing is helping or hurting Plex. Nor is it helping or hurting anyone else.

Plex is enshittifying. I'm not sure how much they care about the opinions of Lifetime Pass users, or particularly care whether those people continue to use the service, at least when it comes to streaming personal media libraries.

For example, Windows is thoroughly enshittified, but I'm not going to tell users of Win 10 that they need to switch away right now, or that they're bad people for continuing to use an old product they previously paid for. Just that they should jump ship whenever they're ready to move on from Win 10.

[–] PhAzE@lemmy.ca 0 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

See, I don't understand that at all from you. How have they lost their way exactly? Th9jga that you can turn off in settings piss9ng you off? Are you unable to stream your content with your plex pass that you already own? Can others not stream from you? Does your content Metadata not scrape properly? Explain you comment because it seems like you're part of the problem hating them for the sake of hating them. Getting "on the train" of hate as it were.

[–] brax@sh.itjust.works -1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I don't care about my Plex pass, I care about the basic service getting shit on. The pass was never meant to give me a premium product, it was meant to support the devs and give me a few minor feature perks.

I've used Plex since 2009-2010. I've watched it change into the trash it is becoming. People should trash it and move to Jellyfin.

[–] PhAzE@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 hour ago

Again, what do you find trash? Every core feature i need works perfectly fine with plex.

[–] AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works 17 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

for now. I feel like it's only a matter of time before they say those lifetime passes are expired, or that the product has changes so much it's not valid, etc. they've proven they don't really care about the user base anymore, it's all about the money for them now unfortunately.

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[–] laurelraven@lemmy.zip 39 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

This makes me glad I went with Jellyfin for my home server

[–] FlembleFabber@sh.itjust.works 7 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Me too buddy, me too. Not gonna lie it took quite a lot of effort to get everything setup and stuff but reading news like this now gives me a cozy warm feeling

[–] LadyMeow@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I’m curious on what more setup you’ve done? Mine has been pretty easy, but I haven’t done too much other than just watch stuff

[–] rami@ani.social 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

I have the sevre side stuff all set up as far as I know but I've not been able to get the Roku app to connect. I should note the tv is literally on the other side of the wall from my computer, they're on the same network.

[–] northernlights@lemmy.today 3 points 8 hours ago

Argh that was so useful in hotels. I'd take a little roku stick and poof.

[–] DannyMac@sh.itjust.works 14 points 12 hours ago

Bye, bye Plex!

What a shocking chapter of "Plex and the Quest for Investiblity!"

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 23 points 15 hours ago

Jeeeeeeelifin, jellifin. jeeeeely jellifin...

[–] Asweet@lemmy.ca 7 points 12 hours ago (8 children)

I tried setting up Jellyfin a while ago, but ran into a lot of difficulties with TV show matching. Plex is a lot better at grabbing a pack of loosely organized files and understanding episode structure without renaming or moving files, which is great for continuing to seed files that are in the library.

I haven’t seen anyone discuss this, so maybe I’m doing something wrong? If not, this is the one major blocker that I have before rolling it out Jellyfin as an alternative to the people I’ve shared my plex server with.

Really want that in place because the writing seems to be on the wall (in flashing neon) about the direction Plex is going

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 1 points 4 hours ago

I got around that by being a bad pirate. If I've watched it, chances are I'm nuking it in a few days from my download drive to make room for something else.

[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

Plex is a lot better at grabbing a pack of loosely organized files and understanding episode structure without renaming or moving files, which is great for continuing to seed files that are in the library.

You may want to look into the *arr suite. Sonarr for managing TV show downloads, Radarr for managing movie downloads, Jellyseerr for managing media requests, Prowlarr for managing torrent/usenet indexers (search engines), Cleanuparr for automatic download management, and Huntarr for automatic downloads.

I haven’t seen anyone discuss this, so maybe I’m doing something wrong?

The go-to these days is to use hardlinks, which will allow you to have the files show up in two places at once. Sort of like a shortcut, but it actually shows the true file instead of simply pointing to a different file location. One stays in your torrent’s location for seeding, and a second hardlink is created in your media folder, with proper naming structure for Plex/Jellyfin to find. The *arr suite automates that process. It tracks your downloads, and automatically creates Plex/Jellyfin file names in the corresponding library folders when the download is completed.

It’s the best in every sense:

  • You can continue seeding.
  • You don’t need to keep multiple copies of the same file, because the hardlink in your library folder is pointing to the same file as the torrent. So it doesn’t take up twice as much space on your drive.
  • You get proper naming conventions for your media discovery.
  • You don’t need to manually manage your library.

The big downside to hardlinks is that they can’t be used across drives or partitions. The hardlink can only point to a file on the same drive. So if your torrent download folder is on a different drive than your library folders, you can’t use hardlinks.

[–] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Not necessarily the same drive but the same pool. I have a ZFS pool with 6 drives and can use hardlinks just fine.

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[–] AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 hours ago

if the hard links everyone else is mentionining aren't feasible for you, take a look at tvnamer. I've found it works quite well for scanning and renaming files, it even supports custom renaming pattern and you can pass it a tvdb series id if it doesn't automatically detect your series.

I use it cause all my torrenting is done on a different machine, and those files get transferred over to my server. so the arr suite isn't the best solution for me

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