I agree, this is an absolutely crazy price increase after they raised it not that long ago already. I'm worried they'll come up with something to screw over the people who got it years ago. It feels desperate.
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Plex Tripling Lifetime Plex Pass Price to $750 in July
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I agree, this is an absolutely crazy price increase after they raised it not that long ago already. I'm worried they'll come up with something to screw over the people who got it years ago. It feels desperate.
Not in my house, and not in many others. If anything, it's gotten cheaper than ever to buy movies for <$10 at Wal Mart than rent them for a few hours on some streaming platform.
I don't even have vinyl, but:
Blew my mind when I first heard it a few years ago, but it's true. And even higher today than in 2022.
That said, of course the behavior of the industry is pushing people towards more piracy. I personally will do physical ownership or piracy before streaming or subscriptions.
rhett7660
macrumors G5
I do have a Plex lifetime pass which I purchased a very long ago. However, I have been using Infuse on my AppleTV without issue for a few years now. I too have a NAS with my data and a Mac Mini that runs my Plex Media Server.
Plex was giving me to many issues when trying to playback my media, so I switched to Infuse and never looked back.
Don't worry, it auto extends
Explained here: https://windscribe.com/knowledge-base/articles/lifetime-account-expiry
rhett7660
macrumors G5
For one, dynamic playlists is huge when it comes to my music. Being able to group music by genre, stars, artists type, along with a boat load other items is huge for me. Being able to access said playlists outside my home network is also big for me.
LogicalApex
macrumors 68000
I'd wager there is a significant portion that don't directly, but do indirectly. Meaning, they don't have pirated media themselves, but they are accessing a shared library that might.
Plex has been targeting that demographic with their own streaming stuff as of late.
Most of my stuff is music, shows and movies I bought at some time, either physically or digitally. It was just more convenient to use iTunes/Apple Music and Microsoft Movies and TV than using Plex. But both companies indicated strongly that they neither need nor want my money so I put up all my stuff on an external 4 TB SSD and run Linux Mint/Plex off a micro PC and was much surprised to realize I’ve had a free Plex account for a decade already.
Post is about Plex.
If majority of plex users pirate moves/tv shows/music, it's unlikely people would pay for this price hike, considering they wouldn't bother buying the media in the first place.
Hope this helps.
archvile
macrumors 6502a
Jellyfin is GREAT but it does require a backend system to host it. I used Jellyfin for many years until my NAS failed (not the RAID but the core system), and when I got it replaced the Jellyfin database refused to restore properly, while also refusing to actually "work". it may have been a version difference between when the NAS failed and when I got a replacement, but nothing I tried worked.
Since I had recently switched from Shield TV (best player for Jellyfin without question) back to Apple TV, I discovered Infuse, which, while not free, does not require any backend system or server to host the database.
Each device that Infuse runs on just scans the file server via SMB and creates its own database of everything right on the device. It does all the show and movie categorization and file fetching automatically.
This means you can just feed it a file pool of media files (Jellyfin was weird sometimes about file structure of TV shows and naming files a certain way), and it does a 99% job of sorting it out. I've only had to tell it to rename one TV show to the correct one. But not having to have some system running Jellyfin either natively or through docker or a VM, is a big plus, since it requires a web browser service to manage everything.
I went ahead and paid the $99 lifetime license since I can use it on all my Macs, 3 Apple TV's and iPhone under just one license. And, it has gotten tons of updates in the last year. But more importantly, it works, and works great, the apps are very native looking (Liquid Glass and all that), and everything just works.
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why everyone wouldn't just move to Jellyfin after something like this is beyond me
For me personally, it is because I tried jellyfin and don't like it.
welp... that would be a good reason then
Interesting. I use the iOS Musicstreamer App for that, but I don't play music when I'm away from home. That could be useful. It would be like my own private Spotify with no fees. Looks like they offer that using iCloud.
MusicStreamer - Stream Music Files From your Network to iOS
Stream your music files from your pc or media drive to your iPhone over WiFi or download your MP3s for offline listening. MusicStreamer - FREE TRIAL
To me, it's still nice to not have to run a server or be tied in to any system or software. These are just mp3 files in a folder, and if Musicstreamer goes away, they can still be accessed in a number of different ways (can currently access them through Finder on my Mac, Roku media player, and GoogleTV media player) though the latter don't offer custom playlists as they are TV interfaces, with the ability to also play music.
Do you have to pay for some type of static dns service to stream music remotely from your home?
Suicidy
macrumors regular
These prices are getting out of hand. Hollywood needs a drastic pay cut.
Media platform Plex today said that it is increasing the price of its Lifetime Plex Pass option to $750, which is a $500 increase from the current $250 price tag.
Plex said that the updated price reflects the "real, ongoing value" of the software that it plans to build and maintain. The company has considered removing the Lifetime Plex Pass because recurring subscriptions pay for long-term development, but Plex wants to continue to offer it because it's a "valuable option" for many in the Plex community.For those unfamiliar with Plex, it is media server software that lets users stream their library of content from a device with the server software installed to any other connected smartphone, tablet, or TV. The Plex Pass unlocks features like server management, hardware transcoding, offline downloads, mobile syncing, remote streaming, and more.
Plex previously increased the cost of the Lifetime Plex Pass from $120 to $250 in March 2025.
Plex customers who previously bought a Lifetime Plex Pass will still be able to access the benefits and perks associated with a Plex Pass with no change. Customers can purchase a Lifetime Plex Pass for $250 prior to when the price changes.
Plex is also not increasing the price of its subscription Plex Pass, which is $7 per month or $70 per year.
In addition to announcing the upcoming price change to the Lifetime Plex Pass, Plex shared its roadmap. It is working to implement improvements to downloads like grouping by show, and updates to its mobile apps.
The Lifetime Plex Pass price increase will go into effect on July 1, 2026 at 12:01 a.m. UTC.
Article Link: Plex Tripling Lifetime Plex Pass Price to $750 in July
Galas
macrumors regular
Went and checked, paid $99 in 2019.
The whole app redesing, constant pushing of their own streaming service, and all other shenanigans had me considering migrating to Jellyfin.
axboi87
macrumors regular
….so that they can pay for major updates / dev investment in the very near future right?
…right?
…right?
Are you really *baffled* that some people see value in a system that doesn't require client-side tail scale setup? Have you tried to talk grandma through that yet? It's impossible.
There's nothing "baffling" at all about an easy to use product that just works, allows for simple setup by remote users (ie grandma), and offers the required infrastructure to support said users.
We can debate price, but let's not debate the "baffling" need for the infrastructure & benefits therein.
Tell your grandma, with only an LG TV, how to gain access to all your media and have exactly the same interface and everything else to what you have locally.
While I fully agree with your use case (Syno DS423+ here, 15 year plexpass) I don't think a different app would take any time at all to transition to, regardless of if you have 50 or 50,000 videos/tv shows, unless IMDB/etc. lookup simply doesn't work on what you have. You should set it to scan, then forget about it.
Now that a day has passed since the announcement, I started to think that their PR/marketing team actually did a terrific job.
They are obviously not expecting people to go out and pay for the $750 license. Based on their wording, they want people to be on subscriptions now, which makes sense since that's the stable business model for software licenses nowadays. They are just keeping this $750 lifetime license as an "option," but it is not their main product to sell.
Also, by announcing this ridiculous price increase for the Lifetime Pass, everyone is now talking about Plex. I don't remember the last time I discussed Plex in online forums, even though I have been using Plex for more than a decade. Job well done, PR team, I guess.
They are obviously not expecting people to go out and pay for the $750 license. Based on their wording, they want people to be on subscriptions now, which makes sense since that's the stable business model for software licenses nowadays. They are just keeping this $750 lifetime license as an "option," but it is not their main product to sell.
Also, by announcing this ridiculous price increase for the Lifetime Pass, everyone is now talking about Plex. I don't remember the last time I discussed Plex in online forums, even though I have been using Plex for more than a decade. Job well done, PR team, I guess.