We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.
So lazyness is the real answer. ;) This is fair enough, to be sure, but logically I continue to have problems with it when looking solely at the wife factor.
My wife sets nothing up, that’s my area of expertise. My wife’s a user. This is true for Jellyfin but also things like our home automation that she very much enjoys but has no clue to how I made work on a technical level. She just taps things in the Home Assistant app as desired and things happen.
I would also argue setting up Jellyfin, though more a complex proposition as Plex, is a lot easier then setting up things like an *arr strack or ripping the media you eventually play back with it.
Plex does very little in a vacuum so despite it being easier to set up, it would be equally unlikely she ever would.
It never occurred to me that when people talk about “wife factor”, they mean setup. I also thought they just meant use.
My wife uses Jellyfin and complains about it less than Netflix or Prime.
My wife is an iPhone and Mac user and asks me to set all her Apple stuff up. I get asked to fix things all the time.
Apparently neither Apple or Jellyfin have sufficient “wife factor” if we include setup.