All fair points, just depends on where your motivation to self host comes from. $7 for a monthly sub to Plex is frankly nothing to me, I don’t even have the charge linked to my budget spreadsheet. Between Plex, VPN, my usenet provider, private tracker memberships, electricity, etc., I’m not even sure I’m saving much money versus having one or two streaming subscriptions. In other words, I don’t do it to save money.

PlexAmp alone justifies the cost even before some features got put behind a paywall but the fact that all my tech-illiterate friends can just download an app on their phones/consoles and watch whatever they want in a high bitrate off my computer makes it worth it for me. 9/10, I just watch films off VLC player anyway.

That isn’t true. A Plex pass from the server owner will cover access for all users

Indeed. The entitlement that some folks online have towards Plex is embarrassing sometimes.

You can selfhost for free however you want but software developers have the right to ask for money to use their software. I selfhost about 60tb of media and have paid for Plex monthly for about 10 years now. They are still so far above the competition for ease-of-use that I wouldn’t even consider switching at this point, even to save $7/month.

This was announced several months ago

Oh that’s fantastic! Thanks

Yeah lol I spent the morning on PC parts picker/Amazon trying to find how tf I could even get a case, mobo, and cpu for under $200. Question still stands, what kind of miniPC do you recommend?

What kind of components would you recommend starting with for a $200 build? Any links would be appreciated

If it replaced my current media player (PS5), then it would be used about 95% for streaming media and 5% playing games, so I consider it more of a Windows HTPC than a gaming console replacement.

I would just be 1/3rd of the people using the console and don’t believe anyone would touch it if it wasn’t an OS that the other users are comfortable with.

Appreciated. It may be worth it to just build a SFF after all. Never heard of massgrave before. QRD?

Not OP but nobody likes price hikes and locking once-free features behind a paywall without adding anything to the features is pretty wack