Sure, you can disable a lot of features from the home page, but even the remaining bits push you toward Plex’s ecosystem with things like recommendations. And I’ve even seen people complaining about needing to re-disable promotional content after updates. It’s simply a shady business.
Edit: It’s just occurred to me that he might literally be referring to the Recommended tab on your home page - which you only have to interact with by choice.
If anyone would care to tell me where I’m being pushed towards Plex’s ecosystem I’d love to understand what the flying fuck he’s talkin about. The only thing I could find that could generously be called part of the Plex “ecosystem” are the social features. Does it give more “ads” if you have a free account or something? Also I’ve had a server for 15 years and I’ve never had to re-do my customization from an update.
I believe I experienced what they called “re-disable promotional content after an update.” Everything was reset and my media was hidden with only their streaming options available. Similarly setting up a new Chromecast it only had their streaming content and I had to hide their content and unhide mine.
I seem to remember there being some weaselly link that would re-enable their content after it was disabled too.
Generously, they’re providing more content and a way to support the development of the product through ads. But all the changes and the way they’re happening show me a picture of a company with changing priorities. So I tend to agree with the sentiment of the author.
I’m not sure I’ve ever used it, but according to Wikipedia, ad videos started in 2019, live tv is 2020, and rentals in 2024. During that time it’s become more and more intrusive, now replacing your media entirely out of the box.
That means for 10 of its 16 software purchases and software subscriptions where it’s bread and butter and has grown into different revenue streams. It’s still software, but now it’s Ad based revenue streams. Adding more and more fees. You might say it’s growing into the thing it was supposed to replace, corporate cable and streaming service.
“Sure, you can disable a lot of features from the home page, but even the remaining bits push you toward Plex’s ecosystem with things like recommendations. And I’ve even seen people complaining about needing to re-disable promotional content after updates. It’s simply a shady business”
If so I’ve definitely experienced that where all of a sudden the damn tab is re-enabled by itself. And it’s not even “disabled” it’s just not the default selection anymore. I can still see it down there.
I wonder what causes that. The only time I’ve had customization reset is if I wiped the metadata during a server migration on accident, or decided to clear it intentionally.
Edit: It’s just occurred to me that he might literally be referring to the Recommended tab on your home page - which you only have to interact with by choice.
If anyone would care to tell me where I’m being pushed towards Plex’s ecosystem I’d love to understand what the flying fuck he’s talkin about. The only thing I could find that could generously be called part of the Plex “ecosystem” are the social features. Does it give more “ads” if you have a free account or something? Also I’ve had a server for 15 years and I’ve never had to re-do my customization from an update.
I believe I experienced what they called “re-disable promotional content after an update.” Everything was reset and my media was hidden with only their streaming options available. Similarly setting up a new Chromecast it only had their streaming content and I had to hide their content and unhide mine.
I seem to remember there being some weaselly link that would re-enable their content after it was disabled too.
Generously, they’re providing more content and a way to support the development of the product through ads. But all the changes and the way they’re happening show me a picture of a company with changing priorities. So I tend to agree with the sentiment of the author.
Ad supported content is their bread and butter. More users use it then run a server and they make more off of it.
I’m not sure I’ve ever used it, but according to Wikipedia, ad videos started in 2019, live tv is 2020, and rentals in 2024. During that time it’s become more and more intrusive, now replacing your media entirely out of the box.
That means for 10 of its 16 software purchases and software subscriptions where it’s bread and butter and has grown into different revenue streams. It’s still software, but now it’s Ad based revenue streams. Adding more and more fees. You might say it’s growing into the thing it was supposed to replace, corporate cable and streaming service.
On mobile if you install Plex for the first time you’re always dumped on the stupid pointless recommended page.
The writer claims that plex drives people towards recommendations even after disabling the recommended tab, that’s the part I’m trying to figure out.
You mean this part?
“Sure, you can disable a lot of features from the home page, but even the remaining bits push you toward Plex’s ecosystem with things like recommendations. And I’ve even seen people complaining about needing to re-disable promotional content after updates. It’s simply a shady business”
If so I’ve definitely experienced that where all of a sudden the damn tab is re-enabled by itself. And it’s not even “disabled” it’s just not the default selection anymore. I can still see it down there.
I wonder what causes that. The only time I’ve had customization reset is if I wiped the metadata during a server migration on accident, or decided to clear it intentionally.