I tried testing a movie from my home server in plex through firefox and repeatedly got this message, even after reloading.
I knew that they had paywalled the apps on mobile and streaming from outside the network but now they have also blocked watching your own movies through your own hardware.
I do get the point that making software should be able to sustain people but I dont see the move of plex as a fair thing to do. Yes, they have made great software but taking your home server hostage feels like the wrong move.
Even a pop up that says “we need you to donate please” would have been fine. make it pop up before every movie, play donation ads before any movie but straight up disabling the app is kinda cruel.
Anyway, i have switched to jellyfin and it is insanely good. please give it a try. you can run it alongside plex with not issues (at least i had none) and compare the two.
In any case, good luck. Let me know if you need help.
Such a good question. Off the top of my head, I can think of two reasons: one cynical, one a little more practical.
Cynical first lol: Maxmize profits. Why charge once when you can charge monthly. I’ll move off this bc it’s a topic that’s been beaten to death, esp. here on Lemmy.
The more practical reason is probably because most software interacts pretty directly with the internet in some way. When we were just installing MSOffice98 with clippy, software didn’t need constant security updates, patches, etc. Remember when there was an update for MSOffice and you’d install Service Pack 1? That was one of the first patches I downloaded from the internet and it was a big deal back then. Now updates come out at least monthly, many times more often than that. I guess that means that you have multple product cycles occuring concurrently, which creates a financial model with a lot more unknowns… which in turn makes it harder to forecast what a product should cost, considering it would be the only revenue generated, per license for the life of the product.
I think selling a product is still a very viable business model, but you have to be a lot more accurate about revenue forcasting and product pricing. I guess it means you have a lot less room for error (from a business perspective).
This is not Microsoft. I haven’t updated my plex software in over six months and it runs fine. Still, yes, I would expect updates to any software I purchase as new patches are needed for OS updates, etc. That shouldn’t be more than two updates a year for a given OS - if at all.
Selling a product, generating revenue, using revenue to improve products or create new products is how we used to run businesses.
If they’re unable to maintain software updates with the revenue they get, then they should discontinue support of less popular products.
As I’ve stated on the plex forum, plex is no longer a media management and consumption platform. It’s a video on demand service. That’s their prerogative and that’s fine. The issue is that they’re discontinuing a product that people have purchased and use on a regular basis. I paid money for a product and that product can no longer be used if I change the device I use that product on. They should have left the existing product alone and released something wholly new.