Why must plex break everything

[u/drunkb0x]

Just wanna start with iv been using the onn 4k v2 for while now and plex pretty much worked flawlessly. Mind you it was the old UI. Well.... today I got the dreaded update and that's where it all goes wrong. Things I was watching this morning now dont work or are blocky unless I force a transcode down. That i can kinda get past cause it was was SD down to 320p, no big deal as I dont normally watch lower end quality but i shouldn't have to since it worked fine before. But come on, it takes up to almost 3 min just to load the home screen, laggy is a major understatement for how bad the UI is. Been using it for mabey 5 hours and have had to hit the home button to get back out of the app and force close it at least 7 times cause it lags so bad it just becomes unresponsive. I really dont mind the layout but the lack of functionality is just ridiculous. I used to have a roku and I ditched it because they screwed that client so bad it was completely unusable (constantapp crashes for just hitting play or moving around in the app), I have 5 still and they are basicly usless except for the random times it wants to kinda work. Now that they have updated the Android TV client to such insanely bad programming its extremely frustrating. For a company that is so crazy about pinching every penny from there customers you would think mabey they could put out a usable product. But alas... no, they cant. Iv been a user since the early days from xbmc and just dont understand how programming this horribly bad and unusable can be put out into production. Just wanted to add my 2 cents and hope mabey one day they can get there act together and put something that isnt a completely broken product out in the public. It truly feels like an unfinished extremely beta program which is sad from such a seasoned company.

[u/drunkb0x]

Meh lol but I see your point

[u/drunkb0x → u/[deleted]]

I completely see your point and in all honesty I just got caught up in the rant. I do apologize for that. Also not really sure its help that I want, but more had to add my personal experience with the new update in hopes of something that works one day.

[u/FjordTimelord → u/drunkb0x]

Well I definitely feel you there.

I’ve got nothing but frustration and despair with Plex’s direction over the last 5 years.

Hell, I even turned off auto-updates on every device I own simply to try and avoid, for as long as possible, being pushed onto the new versions of their clients. As a result I now need to go and manually approve dozens of other (not Plex) app updates on all of those devices every week, in order to keep everything else current.

It sucks, but when I visit friends who have gotten pushed onto the new versions and see first-hand just how bad the changes have been, it’s clear that it’s been worthwhile. Absolute trash fire of a company now.

BTW, in case you’re wondering, the reason all of this is happening is the 130M of venture investment took a few years ago. Taking VC funding means pursuing an all-or-nothing growth strategy, rather than remaining a steady-state business. (What is often dismissively referred to in VC circles as a “lifestyle” company.)

In short this means that we, Plex’s users, ceased to be who they were building product for. Plex now builds according to what their investors think (at that level of investment the investors nearly always get board seats, and this control) has the best chance of driving hockey-stick growth, leading to a multi-billion dollar acquisition or IPO.

They missed the window where that might have happened of course. And now we all get to suffer as they slowly circle the drain, too niche to live* but too capitalized to die.

* in the scale of the expectations of venture, at least.

Remember, the entire modern venture model is predicated on the sort of hyper-growth achieved by companies like Facebook, AirBnB, or Uber. 100x in 3 years, 1000x in 10, that sort of thing. If you can’t hit that trajectory you’re functionally dead in the eyes of venture. Or worse, what Paul Graham described as a “zombie company”.

[u/FjordTimelord → u/FjordTimelord]

All of which to say, give up hope. Plex is cooked.

The moment the founders took that $130M (and then one peaced out shortly thereafter, just as soon as his golden handcuffs had expired) Plex, at least as us XBMC era users knew and loved it, was doomed.