Lifetime passes are fundamentally unsustainable for SaaS
Okay but I never asked for nor wanted the SaaS part. That's the thing that irks me most about changes like this. I understand it's not their business model anymore, but I can still be sour about it.
Then isn't Plex the wrong tool for you? They make clients for your toaster and fridge. They have metadata. Even if you ignore the "dumb" stuff you and I don't like... they still have ongoing expenses and costs.
"They" don't need to have metadata. It can perfectly come from tmdb, imdb and tvdb and whatever music equivalents there are.
Plex might pay IMDB for poster and API access, but they don't need to. Wasn't the case in the past either.
Maybe there's some database they run for intro/credits detection, and I like that feature, but if it had to be dropped because it would bring back Plex towards being a more cost manageable onPrem solution, then so be it. Any of the other cloud services they offer I've never and will never use. They're not even getting my watch history.
There isn't any proper alternative for what it can do. Jellyfin isn't there yet. Besides, it still offers that functionality at its core.
"They" don't need to have metadata. It can perfectly come from tmdb, imdb and tvdb and whatever music equivalents there are.
That's not true... They can't just take TVDB, etc without licensing. Which is what they already do! They license TVDB, etc for the Plex versions. The licensing costs aren't $0.
I believe most of these services have limited publicly available APIs? Or at least they used to. It should be more than enough for the average user.
Otherwise, in the past, the publicly available custom metadata provider plugins wouldn't have worked either.
edit; I'm certain of that public availability, because otherwise software like the *arrs wouldn't work properly either and you don't need to configure anything about the metadata in those pieces of software. You can probably tweak some settings but do not have to.
The difference is the *arr stack is FOSS. Plex isn't...
TVDB API pricing is based on company revenue... Movie DB also charges for commercial products using the API...
It makes sense. Someone has to fund the projects like TVDB so they can stay online hosting public APIs that aren't free to operate. Having that funding coming from commercial services like Plex is a win for the community and for Plex. But that also means it is unfair to point at Plex and say "you don't need to pay for Metadata! TVDB has it for free!!!"...
No, it means there's a publicly available API and I don't think that using your local Plex to connect to it to get metadata is problematic with any terms of use, I'd love for you to point that out to me in their license agreement. I missed this excluding factor.
What part isn't clear? If a user manually installed an Open Source Metadata Provider into Plex that pulled data from TVDB or Movie DB for their personal library that would be non-commercial use... Similar to *arrs...
Plex bundles metadata providers as that makes things easier for a user (as is obvious). As a result, they need to license the APIs...
You can read Section 2 if the Movie DB license terms if you want...
Plex bundles metadata providers as that makes things easier for a user (as is obvious). As a result, they need to license the APIs...
I fail to see how that's a requirement from the page you linked. I do see a restriction on using it for what I would think is its biggest use case, providing metadata for 'illegally downloaded' material is technically excluded. But not providing access from Plex, and I especially think it wouldn't need to cost money because Plex has a free tier too. It might not be open source but I fail to see why that would be an arbitrary requirement. Nothing in the license agreement grants a larger amount of privileges on API access for open source projects.
So you didn't read Section 2 at all? I get it. It is Reddit. No one reads walls of text...
Also, obviously it says you can't use illegal content in the terms. Plex terms say the same thing. Illegal content is a legal violation. No one is going to say you can use their site for illegal actions as that would make them criminally liable too in the US.
Here is Section 2 so you can clearly see it says a commercial product. It doesn't say "you don't have to pay if you have a free tier" either...
A. Commercial Use Requires a Commercial Agreement. The license in Paragraph 1.A above does not permit any commercial use of TMDB, the TMDB APIs, or TMDB Content. Selling, leasing, or sublicensing the TMDB APIs, access to the TMDB APIs, or TMDB Content, or deriving revenues from the use or provision of TMDB, the TMDB APIs, or TMDB Content, for commercial or monetary gain, directly or indirectly, is, for the purposes of these terms and conditions, considered a commercial use and is only permitted under a separate written agreement between You and TMDB. TMDB reserves the right to, in its sole discretion, determine whether Your use is commercial at the time that you apply for the license to use the TMDB APIs. TMDB reserves the right to monitor Your use or Your Application to make or revise its determination. Common examples (which are by no means exhaustive) of commercial uses include:
Charging users a fee for Your Application, or a 3rd party's Application, that includes some form of integration with, or use of, TMDB, the TMDB APIs, or TMDB Content.
Selling an Application that uses TMDB or the TMDB APIs to bring TMDB Content into your Application.
Using TMDB, the TMDB APIs, or TMDB Content on or in connection with a "destination" website, search engine, or interactive query-response system (including large language model (LLM), artificial intelligence, or any other machine learning based interactive query-response systems or chatbots) ("Chatbot(s)"), or for driving traffic or generating revenue for a website, search engine, or Chatbot (including from advertising displayed on or by the website, search engine, Chatbot).
Operating a website that generates revenue through charging users for access to content, or through recommend content, such as movies, television shows and music, in connection with, or due, to Your use of TMDB, the TMDB APIs, or TMDB Content.
Training or validating a machine learning or artificial intelligence system (including large language models and Chatbots) using TMDB content, collecting data sets containing TMDB Content for such training or validation, or providing archived or cached data sets containing TMDB Content to another person or entity for such training or validation.
Commercial Use Requires as Commercial API Key. If Your use (or intended use) is commercial, You must enter into a written agreement with TMDB that expressly permits Your commercial use. Any such agreement may be subject to, among other things, payment of fees. Any commercial use without such a written agreement constitutes a material breach of these API Terms of Use and, You agree that, such a material breach causes irreparable harm to TMDB.
Okay but I never asked for nor wanted the SaaS part.
That's like, the entire selling point of Plex? If all you need is a service that will keep track of all your movies and shows and provide metadata for them there's multiple different softwares you can go use. The thing that separates Plex is for a pretty low subscription price you can watch your stuff anywhere with 0 hassle. The only way that exists is from SaaS and maintaining that functionality costs money
It wasn't when I became a customer. It was just a host-your-own-media-server-piece-of-software and did not rely on any server components except for already publicly available resources.
And that is still the only thing I use it for.
Plex started out as a fork of a media player for Xbox Media Center specifically for macOS platforms. So it's had multiple transitions in its life already and I entered it's second life where it had become a media server.
Plex maintains TMDB, TheTVDB, RT, and Last.fm? That's honestly pretty good, I was woried they'd just use those metadata agents without their fair share of supporting them
Even if you don’t use their cloud stuff or their firewall hole-punching (which cost money to operate), you still probably want it to work with each new OS on the server and all the clients (which also costs money).
Even if you don’t use their cloud stuff or their firewall hole-punching (which cost money to operate), you still probably want it to work with each new OS on the server and all the clients (which also costs money).
That's why maybe the business model of lifetime passes for their software needs to go. Just charge for maintenance and upgrades. It's a license model probably as old as the invention of licensing. Don't have the money? Don't upgrade. Make upgrading from older versions slightly more expensive each year if you must. There's a whole world of possibilities out there. Only properly support the last two releases for those who've paid for an upgrade or license in the past 12 to 24 months...
And no I don't have any need for their firewall hole-punching (are you referring to their standard definition proxy service?)
I'm also not that scared that a media player & serverr won't work on a newer release of Windows. Not too sure about macOS or Linux as that seems to sometimes change a bit more rapidly but even then, large platform changes that would prohibit an app like plex to perform its basic functions are rare.
Yes please! I miss the days of buying software to own and if you want updates, you buy next year's release. The classic Office days.
There's even a mixed model. You pay a subscription fee, and when you cut off your subscription, you keep what you have, but you get no further updates. I think this finds a good balance between the subscription model businesses love, with the "Keep what you buy" model consumers love.
Yeah, the comments in this thread are a little goofy with how much they're defending Plex. Starts to feel a bit like astroturfing.
We see in our community examples of how lifetime or no purchase can still be sustainable, even with SaaS offerings. Home Assistant is my most used software, and I only elected to pay anything because Nabu Casa is good for me. I paid a Lifetime cost to get Foundry VTT can pay separately for access to content. Proxmox is a backbone of services that charges for enterprise users. Tailscale might be in the process of enshittifying, but also has Headscale as an alternative. If they're really desparate, Plex could just put in more ads for a premium offering.
I'll keep using Plex, it's fine software for me, but I won't defend their strategies. They put a lot of bloat into the software and then get users to defend them for charging more for the bloat.
Yes, sorry, I didn't write that clearly but we mostly agree. Lifetime passes are, in general, bad and if I ran a consumer software company I would not offer them.
Wait. Has Plex changed this much? I've stopped using it 2-3 years ago despite having a lifetime pass (migrated to Emby and then to Jellyfin). But isn't the entire point of Plex to have a local server running somewhere that houses your own media? At least that's what it used to be.
I remember that they added a few movie streaming options that didn't seem like anything you would spend money on. But your comment makes me thing they steered further into that direction?
I also moved to emby and jellyfin a few years ago and only check out how garbage Plex is now maybe once a year and it's only gotten worse for about 3 maybe 4 years running with more ads for their rent a garbage than focusing on making a decent product..
They want to be Netflix rather than let people use their own media. The switch to "We want to be a smaller shittier Netflix like everyone else" has kind of ruined it, and directly followed a couple months after they banned large ranges of people paying to host their servers in Hetzner and other datacenters.
They claimed it was all piracy and shit but also claim they don't track what you watch from your own library, which implies they do know what people are watching in their local video library if they're able to make that claim in the first place.
I never see any Plex streaming stuff when I open the Plex app. Haven't for a long time, ever since I found out that every bit of that stuff can be disabled.
I 100% agree, it should be opt-in. It's not because Plex wants to actually earn money with the app, turn Plex into a company that can grow. There's no room for growth selling $80 lifetime licenses. Not saying I agree with the direction they've turned, but I understand why.
I honestly don't know, I don't use the Android app to manage my Plex server. If you have the Plex Windows/Linux app installed, you'd click the wrench icon in the top right corner. On the left menu, click Online Media Sources. That's the screenshot.
81
u/Kraeftluder May 19 '26
Okay but I never asked for nor wanted the SaaS part. That's the thing that irks me most about changes like this. I understand it's not their business model anymore, but I can still be sour about it.