this post was submitted on 19 May 2026
384 points (97.1% liked)

Selfhosted

56958 readers
2085 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

  7. No low-effort posts. This is subjective and will largely be determined by the community member reports.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Plex has announced a massive price increase on the service's Lifetime Plex Pass. On July 1, the lifetime subscription option will go from $249.99 to $749.99, an increase of 200%. The price hike will only apply to new subscribers, with no changes to monthly or annual subscription pricing.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Sure, but that doesn’t mean Plex will do it.

[–] badgermurphy@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

While that's true, it is in the standard VC playbook to make that move. Since they seem to be using that playbook, there will come a point in the monetization program where the lifetime membership becomes a blocker, which is overcome by diluting the lifetime account to increase the appeal of the subscription by comparison.

So, while nobody in here is named Nostradamus, it does not take a clairvoyance to see the future in this case. Countless other companies have followed this same program, with only minor variation, to extract revenue from the product like a strip mine. If I see 100 companies perform a 15-or-so step monetization spiral, it is not a leap of logic to think Plex is going to do steps 9-15 since we've just seen them do steps 1-8.

[–] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

The lifetime membership will never be a blocked thanks to this price update.

I’ve never had a lifetime license be taken away other than the company going out of business.

[–] badgermurphy@lemmy.world 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

No, they can't just breach the contract you have with them, of course, but the VC playbook has a play for that.

What they will do is create a different service tier that does not include the same features as the standard or lifetime plans have. That tier will initially have some "value adds" that are of little interest to most users. Then, slowly, features will disappear from the other tiers, and a greater percentage of users will be drawn to that one because the "standard" one is increasingly lacking.

Eventually, Plex Standard will be quite anemic, with at least a couple must-have features available to only GigaPlex members. Because you're a "valued lifetime customer", you'll get the option to convert your lifetime membership into 90-365 days of free GigaPlex.

So, Plex wins their game. The lifetime members practically all either switch to monthly premium service or leave, both of which are outcomes that are to their benefit. Nobody took away your lifetime membership, they just transformed it to garbage.

Its not every company, but it is every company owned by venture capital.

[–] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You can live in fear of your made up scenarios like this, but I'm just going to continue using Plex with my lifetime license.

[–] badgermurphy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

I'm not afraid of the inevitable, man. We are having a conversation and I'm sharing my thoughts.