Right before Xmas, a few weeks ago, an executive decision was made that included two things. The first? It was time to renew some computer hardware. The second? I turned off all my Plex devices. In order to renew my hardware, though, I had to get some cash. For you see, dear worst-reader, cash is not my friend or my mate. Here’s a bit about how I got the cash–and my choice of renewed hardware. The second thing, though, wasn’t exactly planned but instead was a blossoming of personal necessity. Although my favourite ripped TV and Movie player has been Plex through the years, which I had turned to as an alternative to iTunes, the last year or so I noticed the atypical corporate-change Plex was pushing on users. By corporate-change, I mean, of course, the company was starting to show, either through desperation or greed-want, it needed to start making money. And so goes the old story of great software idears–that are great only because, well, they are free–and how the greed-machine turns them into $hit. For the last six months or so and with every update, Plex has been sneaking in signals about how it’s going to start offering some kind of a subscription plan. Plex already has a pay plan that enables some kind of personal streaming of your media. It’s something about remotely accessing your media where ever you are. I can’t say more about that because, well, it’s never interested me. Also, due to bandwidth concerns and the non-productive über-cost of mobile device downloads, I never even considered paying for such a service. I mean, seriously, the thought of streaming one of my movies remotely to my phone is just weird. Or maybe I’m weird. Nomatter. Now. Don’t get me wrong, dear worst-reader. I’m not about software-hicks staying poor, i.e. not earning their keep. Whoever started Plex deserves what they get–even if they are forced to play the greed-game. Indeed. But as soon as I started to see hints about a “subscription” service ontop of their other paid service… I’m outta here! In other worst-words: Plex has gone too far. With all these paid options it’s now offering, it’s turning into the same iTunes krapp that I wanted to get away from in the first place. And so. After deleting my Plex server and clients I kinda of missed it for a few days. But then I realised that this change in my personal and household computing was long over-do and I had been, perhaps, putting off the inevitable. As far as my media library is concerned? For desktop video streaming I use VLC and connect directly to my NAS. For music streaming I use Volumio. But get this. Guess what Volumio is starting to tease? That’s right. With a late 2018 software update, they’ve sneaked in some stupid subscription service that allows remote access. Go figure. So you know what that means, eh? If the future is gonna make all these once great software apps all about the greed $hit$how, I might as well just return to iTunes. Yeah, so much for pseudo-innovation and/or countering the heavy-weights.
Rant on.
-T
via Plex Is the Latest Player to Contemplate the Subscription Streaming Game | Digital Trends
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