this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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I had a family account, but I stopped using it since going abroad to uni once they cracked down. The amount of content is just at the point where I don't see any value to subscribing.
Generally though, exactly what killed cable TV is killing my use of Netflix and other services. All the interesting stuff is now so spread out on so many different services, it's just no longer worth it.
Dealing with N different subscriptions and different websites, is too much BS to deal with AND pay for, so I'm just going to run my own server.
It is trivial to sign up for a service when you want to watch something, and then cancel it when you don't, until there's something else you want to watch on the service. That is the benefit over cable.
Most people still treat it like a cable subscription: always on, even if they're not watching it.
That's a good thought and would probably work if I lived alone and only watched one thing at a time.
But I would say it depends on your use case and the size of your household. We are 4 ppl in my family that watch different content on the same TV at different times of the day. We have Netflix (the wife's show is here), Disney (kids), HBO (me), Viaplay (family movies in my native language when we all watch together). I have been sharing thease accounts with my brothers family but we are about to move to Plex, I would rather buy DVD or digital releases and host it myself then use all thease subscriptions.
If they would price it better, could work together and all be used in the same interface on my tv then maybe I would be willing to go back.
I have spent thousands of dollars over the years on my Plex setup. I'd caution against the assumption that switching to Plex and hosting your media is going to be cheaper in the short run, or maybe even the long run, than paying for streaming services. Depending on your use case you may even need to pay for Plexpass. (Hardware encoding, iirc, is locked behind their Plexpass subscription.) And factor in the inevitable troubleshooting you'll have to do when something doesn't work for your brother's family.
Do the math for yourself, is all I'm saying. It's not automatically the better solution.
Those are all good points and I'm happy you replied, as it will probably help other who read this 😊
However I already have a Plex server for my older media (VHS 😅 tapes) that I have converted to digital, that's hosted on my NAS, and lifetime Plex pass. I have been meaning to look into open source replacements but many older smart tvs only have Plex 🤷
I should probably have mentioned as well that the inconvenience of having multiple apps are a bigger hurdle for my family then the cost, as that pushes us towards things like Plex where the kids could find everything in one app