[dakial1]

Point #1: This bait-and-switch tactic shouldn't be allowed by consumer regulations (Not in the US, but here in Brazil it would be a no-no) as in the end Amazon is tricking it's use base into paying for the Fire TV as a great deal, when in the end they will pay more for streaming as those costs that Amazon is putting on the streaming services will be paid by them in the end.

#2 Wouldn't this movement be (potentially) a great chance for Plex to better position itself in the legal side of streaming? Because by offering a free hub for streaming (even licensing it for hardware sellers like Dlink and others, like Boxee once did) might generate a good revenue stream for them...until somebody buys the whole team (I miss you Boxee!)

[Liquix]

Plex Inc. is not a good company. They are eager to collect and sell your data to advertisers. Jellyfin is a great alternative.

Plex may share Collected Information as expressly set forth in this Privacy Policy, including the following limited situations: [...] With third parties to improve and deliver advertising to you on our behalf.

Plex may also use third-party advertising companies to serve ads, which may, directly or indirectly, collect or use information about user visits to websites and mobile app usage over time and across non-affiliated websites and mobile apps to display advertisements more tailored to users’ interests on this browser or device, and those browsers or devices associated with it.

More in the "Data We Collect" section: https://www.plex.tv/about/privacy-legal/

[sithadmin]

As lousy as Plex (both the company and the product) have become, there really aren't alternatives with feature-parity available. Jellyfin is starting to get there in terms of basic media center functionality, but still faces stability and platform compatibility issues that have been long-solved by Plex. Jellyfin also lags behind in ecosystem support/integration for those of us operating media servers with heavy amounts of automation and dependencies on workflows executed by 3rd party packages.

[skulk]

Here's my data point: I use Jellyfin and I am satisfied with it.

My use case: movies and TV shows, streaming from mobile, PC, or smart TV with auto-downloaded subtitles and varying stream quality. Heavy use of the "watch together" feature. (Plex watch together is horrible compared to Jellyfin.)

[driscoll42]

What is particularly lousy about Plex as a product? Overall I'm quite satisfied with it, it's gotten better over the past few years noticeably I felt with the downloads actually working, collections, more suggestions, etc... I will say the genre filter for movies/shows is quite useless though.

[noja]

Infuse https://firecore.com/infuse

[slivanes]

Client is available for Apple ecosystem only.

[Larrikin]

Don't all Jelly Fin solutions still lack proper intro skip. There are some hacky plugins but nothing like Plex or Netflix on the TV.

[katbyte]

Emby has intro skip now

[notatoad]

where "my data" means a record of the shows i watch.

i'm okay with that. the shows i watch don't need to be a secret. i want advertisers to know what i watch, so more of that sort of TV gets made. If Plex can make money off this information, and give me a good service in exchange for that, it seems like an arrangement that benefits us both. what's the problem?

[abdullahkhalids]

There is a difference between

* 20 million people watched show X-Episode 5, and

* notatoad watched show X-Episode 5 on 28-July-2023 at 8pm. We can also correlate that that they used UberEats to order Thai Cuisine at 7 pm on the same day, and that a certain group he belongs to was Y% more likely to buy the product placed within that show.

The second kind of information will be used in the future against you, to extract the maximum amount of money from you for services that "you just can't miss", after being bombarded with ads and social media influencers in sufficient quantity.

[l33t233372]

I used to order Chinese take out to watch every new episode of Burn Notice. I’m not concerned about companies knowing this and using it “against me” in targeted advertising.

[notatoad]

this sounds pretty excellent. i wish some advertiser had suggested this to me when burn notice was still on the air.

[turquoisevar]

The point of correlating data has already been brought up, but ultimately no answer will be satisfactory.

Some people consider it a problem and some people don’t.

The former is more sensitive to their data being collected and leveraged and the latter “has nothing to hide” or simply prefers targeted ads.

Some are against manipulation attempts with the goal to be parted with their money and others go all in on “personal responsibility”.

They’re entirely incompatible positions and any debate back and forth would be a waste of time of both parties.

[duped]

It's called the razor-and-blade model, it's not a bait and switch.

RE Plex, that's basically what Android TV does, except it's better than Plex (for streaming services and device manufacturers) and has the same model as FireTV

[Timon3]

Can you explain how? The situation here is:

- Customers bought the devices without the 30% rule in effect

- Amazon introduces the 30% rule

- Customers will now be asked higher prices to make up for the lost revenue

The razor-and-blade model is about selling one product cheap to increase sales on a complementary good. It's not about a vendor changing the situation, as is the case here.

[RajT88]

PSA: VLC is available for Fire devices and is fantastic.

You can stream right off SMB shares.

[deely3]

How we can differentiate between bait-and-switch and honest price correction?

[nazcan]

Bait and switch for who(m)? The companies offering services on these providers?

Their is a simple fix - get a contract and don't assume current terms will continue without it.

[princevegeta89]

I am not sure I understand the Plex example here - their free streaming service that they are pushing so aggressively involves a lot of ads and some ad revenue as well. Eventually since they have to pay FireTV the 30% cut, they might end up raising prices of Plex Pass, or discontinue their "free" streaming service?

[paul7986]

Umm no need to pay for many or any streaming service then that consumer problem is solved just watch the free outlets like YouTube.

Hollywood's biggest competitor is content creators on Youtube, Tiktok, etc ... my bet is they will need to compete and many paid offerings will consolidate and become free / less expensive to compete with all the free content creators on YouTube, Tiktok and etc. If you look at where the eyeballs are the majority are on Tiktok. Personally after using Reels, Tiktok and tons more of YouTube i have a hard time watching long form content. I just want to watch stuff here and there in the background while im working or right before bed any other time Im far away from tv screen outside or with friends/family enjoying life.

Further .. i use to watch documentaries on the history channel and or other places ... there's tons of solid and good content creators doing that same thing on youTube.

[lancesells]

> free outlets like YouTube

Free and YouTube are not the same. YouTube either has ads or you're paying. Ads are not free. They take your time, which is in limited supply for everyone on the planet. The use of an adblocker does make it free.

I've never used Tiktok so I have no idea if it has ads and what the frequency is.

> i have a hard time watching long form content

I don't know if this is good or bad. I'm older and think this loss of attention is very much a net bad to thinking, but maybe the new way of devouring content turns out to be a plus. I always wonder if 15 second videos turn to 10 seconds, and then 5 seconds, and then 1 second over the next 100 years. Is the future just a video from the A Clockwork Orange rehabilitation scene and everyone is happy about it?

This is why billionaires who could pay to have someone wipe their ass invest in longevity startups.

[jfim]

I'm not convinced that Hollywood really competes with TikTok. Going out for a movie date sounds a lot more interesting than "let's go flop on the couch and watch TikTok/YouTube all evening."

[kevinventullo]

Does Hollywood still make most of its money from theater ticket sales?

[paul7986]

If it does look at the box office results this year or lack of them compared to the last few years ... many not opening and or close to 100 million seen in many prior years.

Could be a mix things from attention spans changing in various demographics to economics to increased spending in travel to other things.

[taeric]

You really couldn't have picked a worse weekend to make this call. Barbie, alone, is setting record numbers that are showing a pretty good recovery for the past few years.

I'm open to attention spans changing. Or demographics changing. Or both. My money, though, is pandemic hangover. I'm struggling to see how anything else comes even close in explanation power to, "we were in a pandemic."

[paul7986]

Barbie yes ... but what about tons of others released mid may til now. Last summer in 2022 many movies made well over 100 million. So the pandemic?

Also Youtube is the most used streaming app followed by TikTok ... how many are watching for free? See Google results for this data https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=are%20people%20using%2...

My thoughts are based on the data above, other similar data Ive seen, my own shortening attention span and these years lackluster box-office compared to 2022 (movies from 2022 that opened above and or well above 100 million https://www.boxofficepro.com/the-top-10-movies-of-2022-at-th...)

To me Hollywood needs to worry even more so the writers, actors and etc ... a younger demographic the future's attention span looks to be elsewhere and they aren't paying to watch their media.

[failuser]

“Netflix and chill” was coined for a reason.

[dylan604]

But watching netflix and tiktok are totally different experiences. I don't know everyone, but I know no one that watches tiktok on their tv.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

Very slick Netflix marketing.

[thrashh]

Okay I watch a lot of YouTube it it’s several leagues of quality below a lot of TV shows.

Some documentary YouTube channels also clearly just read Wikipedia and regurgitate random online sources. They don’t have the budget to go to the actual source or do any interviews.

Ofc there are a lot of bad TV shows on streaming services too but a world with access to both is nice.

[nijave]

It might be channel specific on YouTube but on one particular channel I think I've had as many as 3 ad breaks for a 10-15 minute video.

[zimpenfish]

I think the worst I've been is 4 breaks in 15 minutes plus a nearly 2 minute sponsor segment. It's a plague.

[eikenberry]

Youtube isn't free. It is either a paid service or via advertising. Neither of those is free.