this post was submitted on 26 May 2026
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I've been thinking about this more and more. According to the sidebar, this community is "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." Based on that I don't think Plex qualifies.

Privacy: Plex clearly records the metadata of what you watch. When I used it, it would send me a report by email of what my "friends" were watching. Even with that turned off, their services still track telemetry.

Control: Plex has all of it. They can (and do) make unilateral changes to the service, how authentication works, where you can run it, etc.

So I ask, when you are hosting something that is entirely dependent on a commercial entity to function, is Plex really selfhosting in the spirit of this community?

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[–] EmotionalSupportBees@lemmy.today 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Sure any criticism is valid, it''s less valid when they miss OPs point, but after a certain length it becomes unnecessarily condescending.

I'm not trying to deflect from their criticism or how it displays their misunderstanding of OPs point, I'm trying to say they are being an asshole

[–] imhungry@leminal.space 2 points 1 month ago

I don't think they were being an asshole about it.

[–] german@pawb.social 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Sorry if I came off that way. About misunderstanding the point - look at the other comments. People are making the same points as me. I don’t think I have misunderstood anything here, and I don’t think being a long response automatically makes it any less valid to understand how nuanced and all encompassing our dependence on third parties is.

You’re the one saying “this is a Wendy’s” which feels quite condescending in a post explicitly asking for opinions on how where Plex falls in the selfhosting community, including as defined in the sidebar.