Plex

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Plex ups its price for first time in a decade, changes remote-streaming access

personal media, Plex, plex pass, plex server, remote watch pass, Tech / /

Plex is a bit hard to explain these days. Even if you don’t know its roots as an outgrowth of a Mac port of the Xbox Media Center project, Plex is not your typical “streaming” service, given how most people use it. So as Plex announces its first price increase to its Plex Pass subscription in more than 10 years, it has its work cut out explaining why, what’s included, and what is changing.

Starting April 29, the cost of a Plex Pass rises from $5 to $7 monthly, from $40 to $70 annually, and a lifetime pass now costs $250, previously $120. In a blog post, Plex cites rising costs and its commitment to an independent service that supports “personal media.”

“We are all in on the continued success of Plex Pass and personal media,” the post states. “This price increase will ensure that we can keep investing dedicated resources in developing new features, while supporting and growing your favorites.” The post cites a roadmap that contains an integration with Common Sense Media, a new “bespoke server management app” for managing server users, and “an open and documented API for server integrations,” including custom metadata agents.

Someone in a remote video stream must have a Pass

And then, after that note, Plex hits the big change: Streaming “personal media”—i.e., video files, not audio, photos, or offerings from Plex’s ad-supported movies and TV—from outside your own network will no longer be a free Plex feature, starting April 29. “Fully free” might be the better way to put it, because if a server owner has a Plex Pass subscription, their users can still access their server for free.

But if you’ve been hosting your own Plex server to maintain access to your stuff while you’re away or relying on the kindness of non-Pass-having friends with servers, either you or your server-owning friends will need a Plex Pass subscription by the end of April.

Alternatively, you, as a non-server-running Plex viewer, can get a cheaper Remote Watch Pass for $2 per month or $20 a year. That doesn’t include Plex Pass features like offline downloads, skipping a show intro or credits, or the like, but it does keep you connected to your “personal media” vendors.

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Plex, where people typically avoid Hollywood fees, now offers movie rentals

culture, Hollywood, Movie rentals, Plex, plex media server, streaming is just cable now, streaming media, streaming services, Tech / /

Streaming is just cable again, Ch. 27 —

Users have one more place to turn when their usual options don’t pan out.

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Movie rental offerings on Plex platform

Enlarge / Because sometimes your friend Tim, the one with all the legal media, is having server issues, but it’s movie night and the popcorn is already made.

Plex

Plex, the media center largely known as a hub for TV and movies that you and your friends obtained one way or another, now lets you pay for movie rentals. It’s both a convenient way to watch movies without having to hunt across multiple services, and yet another shift by Plex to be closer to the mainstream.

Plex’s first set of available films is more than 1,000 titles, with some notable recent-run offerings: Barbie, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Wonka, PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie, and so forth. As is typical of digital rentals, you have 30 days to start watching a movie and then 48 hours to finish it.

Prices at the moment range from $3.99 to $5.99. Conveniently, movies you rent on one platform can be played on any other. Even on Apple devices, or, as Plex puts it, “devices that don’t allow direct rentals on their platform.” Rentals are only available in the US, however.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Develop an audience of paying movie renters on a platform not exactly known for paid media.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Develop an audience of paying movie renters on a platform not exactly known for paid media.

Plex

Interestingly, Plex doesn’t offer movie purchases, and there is a reason why. Plex CEO Keith Valory told TechCrunch that a purchase option “creates some additional wrinkles—now you’ve got to keep this locker for people long-term and does that really make sense [for us]?” It’s true that platforms brokering purchases between users and media conglomerates can find themselves in awkward spots, like Sony almost having deleted all Discovery content bought by PlayStation users. That kind of scenario is also, of course, the kind of thing that initially made Plex appealing to people with their own content to store.

Plex had originally planned to offer media rentals as far back as 2020 but shifted priorities when the pandemic, and its seismic shift toward streaming, gave it new targets. As a company, Plex pivoted to becoming a kind of collector of streaming services so that when you wanted to watch something, you could head to Plex and head out from there. It has previously added free ad-supported streaming of TV and movies to its platform, along with support for over-the-air antenna TV.

In that view of Plex, movie rentals make total sense; you might see that Apple TV+ or Disney+ subscribers can see a certain movie for free, but rather than set up a new cancellation reminder on your calendar, you can just pay one time and watch it.

For lots of Plex users, however, movie rentals are likely to be something nice to have, if not essential. The service today serves as a refuge from app-switching, unreliable media availability, and rapidly escalating subscription prices. It can play your own legally rendered backups of media you rightfully own, or it can connect you to friends or superusers who have… a huge number of legally rendered backups of media they rightfully own.

Given a choice, however, Plex users might be glad to throw their fancy-coffee-plus-tip rental fees to Plex rather than any one streaming silo just to keep the service funded and updated.

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