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 customer’s “friends and family” that are enjoying shared libraries already.
Their ‘customer’ base has for many many years been developing a large user base of technologically naive people with Plex apps installed who could never run their own server. If Plex knows, for example, that for every paying 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… We made this possible.
I don’t like it but I can’t argue with the logic from Plex here.
-edit- Tightened up the grammar.
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.
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.
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.
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 to push this, that’ll be another matter altogether. Which would not be unexpected.
I’ll probably trial Jellyfin too in preparation to migrate the family should push come to shove.
