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?
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.