Technology

Early adopter club 🙌🙌

I haven’t checked in on Jellyfin for a while now, but don’t they still have issues with hardware transcoding support?

Not to mention the lack of software clients on other platforms for just playback that Plex has been established on for years and even multiple device generations like with PlayStation, Roku, Fire Stick, etc.?

Also you have to configure your own reverse proxy / Tailscale set up to securely access a content library remotely, right - as opposed Plex’s relatively simpler remote access configuration?

Last I looked, jellyfin auth and public facing security were less than ideal.

How far has that come in the last few years? I have plenty of people using my Plex and it's been secure. I had heard a public facing Jellyfin wasn't super secure.

Honestly, 95% of the reason I use Plex is so I don't have to manage user passwords and troubleshoot issues for my friends and family. I just grant access.

It's essentially a one time fee for an indefinite service of handling the vpn side of the setup.

I use Jellyfin on my local network and plex externally because I don't know how to route specific traffic with openvpn on my phone and can't be bothered switching it off and on when streaming things 😅

I'm not sure how it's sustainable, and am surprised they still offer the life pass at all though.

I guess a lot of people buy it who don't need it?

I still probably wouldn't pay the current price for it though, I got it about a decade ago lol.

Oh also plexamp has a better UX than jellyfin for music, but I don't think that alone would justify the current price.

An absolutely insane number of self hosting options require a subscription for now fucking reasoning.

Not a one time buy which would at least make sense. No no! Its a monthly fee AND half the time they require a Internet connection and checkin. Just to SELF HOST.

its fucking baffling.

Lazy ones will just keep paying monthly. Industrious ones might move to jellyfin. The main thing this will do is ~~separate a few fools from their money~~ get people to stop buying lifetime passes.

I tried switching and I'll try again. But getting https reverse proxy was a lot of moving parts that I never got working.

The instructions were a long chain of learning:

Install ngnx for reverse proxy

Ngnx only available as docker

Install docker

Docker not working because I don't understand it.

Install podman

Give up and go back to 3d printing where I have a backlog of stuff that actually needs to be done.

Yeah Lifetime Passes are unsustainable for a service. The only reason they exist is to attract some early adopters, keep them and if lucky enough have them bring more customers.

The only viable path forward is to discontinue the purchase of new lifetime licenses, or make them exponentially expensive.

I was an early adopter to Plex, came over from Boxee when it was a thing and bought a very inexpensive lifetime pass.

I jumped ship about a year ago to jellyfin. I use tailscale and just help people set it up. After initial setup, it's a toggle and start jellyfin and it functions pretty close to Plex. My users use the Onn box or Nvidia shield. Almost nothing has to transcode. I had issues with poorly encoded mp4 files but mkv streams flawlessly without transcode. Transcode itself is limited by graphics chip.

One note, I don't add people to my tailscale, each user has their own tailnet and then I join it to mine by inviting them to my server. This gets around the 3 user limit.

Overall, some annoyance and pain but not bad and people went along with my plan and now it's just normal.

My thing was, it's my server. If they want what I have then buy an Onn or whatever and spend 15 minutes setting things up. Or don't. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

as soon as they think the market will bear it

How much longer until all the current lifetime subscribers have to pay up to the current price to keep it?

I'm just waiting for them to decide all the lifetime members need to pay monthly and kill off the lifetime memberships. Probably by having a 'new' version that for some made up reason can only function ~~on the blood of the unborn~~ on monthly subscriptions. Where the only real change will be a different UI that's missing features which they will tout as "cleaner".