this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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The thing I don't get (I do - it's greed, FYI) is why the fuck they even care? If I'm paying for 2 or 4 screens on my Netflix account, why the fuck does it even matter which address they're playing at? Netflix were about to sting me because my stepkids (who are with us half the time) were using my account while at their dad's.
Believe it or not, Netflix finally drove me to Plex. I'd been holding out, still using Kodi, but decided the money I was saving could go towards a much nicer setup, and it did. A pair of HP DL380 G7s, Proxmox - the works.
Now my stepkids use my Plex server, and have both happily streamed the latest Black Mirror from it (shit season, BTW - another hump in the downhill shitshow that Netflix has become). And the savings from my cancelled Netflix sub will have paid for it over the next 12 months or so.
Thanks Netflix! Ya dumb cunts.
It's simple - you're paying for 2 or 4 screens, but you could be paying for 2 or 4 screens AND multiple accounts! That would give them more of your money, so it's their preferred option.
Love might be sharing a password, but profit is paying multiple times for the same thing, so here we are...
They made record profits during quarantine, when everyone was stuck at home. Now they have two problems:
They don't actually care any more than they ever did, this is just an easy way to get money out of accounts they see as less likely to cancel because many people are using the same account.
how hard was it to do a plex server? did you just use an old pc or what did you use as the host?
After some discussion with the Minister for War and Finance (my wife), we agreed I had a modest budget (~$300AUD) to spend on some old enterprise servers, which I did.
But I've seen plenty of posts where people are getting away with their old gaming rigs, and the like.
I've got a PC that my job was throwing out and I put a CPU, hard drive and RAM combo I got on Craigslist (that's like gumtree) for $20USD in there and I've only ever had problems with 4k and HDR. Plex itself is pretty cheap perf-wise! Transcoding can be a problem but you can set it up to pre-transcode multiple quality options or just stream it original quality if you have the bandwidth.
I may do something similar! Might as well
Seriously, after I did it and set my wife up for it, she asked me why it took me so long to make the move. It's been a real game changer for my family. It just works.
I set up mine shortly after cancelling Netflix after the last price increase about a year ago.
Repurposed an old Raspberry Pi 3 that had been a Kodi setup. Added a spare 2TB PS4 external HD. Been working great the last year. But looking to get an actual NAS setup to replace paying for google photos (my wife), more Plex storage, and a python dev server. That’ll run my about $900 though.
The Pi3 with the PS4 HD was less than $130.
You and your family could be paying for 2-3 accounts instead, and also paying for the 2 or 4 screen plan on all of them if you want 4K.
Maybe you won't, but many will. And they'll offset you unsubscribing your one account.
Plus even if they increase their total subscriptions by only 10% it's still worth it, because they probably lost active users, so there's less actual load on their servers for the same amount of subs.
I dropped my 4 screen plan in October or November when I first heard about the upcoming sharing restrictions because it was actually being used from 3 or 4 locations, but unfortunately I think us cancellers are probably outnumbered by people who just created new accounts because they had to stop using someone else's.
Oh, 100% right there. Those of us that are both willing to cancel and capable of setting ourselves up with an alternative like Plex are, sadly, in the minority. I'm doing my bit, though. Have invited a couple of friends to my library and showed them how to use the app, and they've happily cancelled their Netflix as well.
Personally I prefer jellyfin but I'll usually stick Foss where Icabn
Yeah, I tried Jellyfin but, at the time, it wasn't as well-featured as Plex. I might go back for a second look but, as I got Plex Pass lifetime sub on special, there's no ongoing cost to offset against the pain of getting my family to adopt yet another new app.