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?

  • MagnificentSteiner@lemmy.zipEnglish
    126·
    7 days ago

    100% agree. Well said.

    To me, self hosting means the service runs on your hardware and is entirely un-reliant on anyone else’s.

    • SaltySalamander@fedia.io
      52·
      7 days ago

      and is entirely un-reliant on anyone else’s

      I’m guessing you coded your own OS that isn’t dependent on updates from repositories you don’t control?

      • MagnificentSteiner@lemmy.zipEnglish
        21·
        7 days ago

        To me, self hosting means the service runs on your hardware and is entirely un-reliant on anyone else’s.

        Convenient you left out the context where it clearly means “the service is un-reliant on anyone else’s hardware to run”. It clearly doesn’t mean un-reliant on anyone, anywhere.