It’s the app ecosystem for plex that keeps me there. There’s an app for my LG tv, an app for my in-laws’ Roku etc.

And forcing logins to go through their centralized servers.

They’ve been failing for a while. It’s capitalism failing, not some magic tech entity concept like AI.

It's been going on for nearly a year now, but the layoffs tend to happen in waves because the stock market and investors in general tend to be very reactionary. Also a lot of companies released their quarterly earnings recently

The problem isn't AI, but interest rates.

Silicon Valley lived for a long time with an investor market that didn't really have anything better to invest their money in, so they would invest in a series of Internet companies with the hope that one of them would make it rich. Now that lending money can make you more money, it isn't worth it to invest in companies or ideas that don't make money right now.

The VC funding that Silicon Valley relied on dried up. If you are a startup, you need to be profitable before you burn through your cash. If you aren't a startup, you don't have to worry as much about new tech cannibalizing your core businesses, so they are more willing to cut product lines.

Money isn’t as cheap anymore as it used to be. Tech companies have been struggling for about a year now. Even the larger ones have to show profits these days (not defending them, just explaining as I’m working in tech as well)

I don’t know if I’d call Plex a “large tech company” though

Its not a tech issue, its a finance issue.

The tech industry has always been highly speculative. What we saw in the 2010s was only made possible through venture capital and high digital advertising budgets.

Now that there's uncertainty and investments are expensive due to high interest rates, VC and advertisers are pulling back. As a result, we're seeing a bunch of business models that have never been viable on their own have to try and support themselves for the first time.

Not just this week but the past year or so

During covid many companies hired a ton of people due to the growth of many industries, particulalry consumer electronics and platforms like Plex and Netflix, and places like Amazon, Google, etc. Because many people were off work, there was greater demand. Obsiously infinite growth is not possible, and when things slowed down after covid, they moved to dump the employees they no longer needed

It doesnt necessarily have anything to do with AI; AI implementations are still extremely rough and moves to implement them at this point means providing an inferior experience. That said, some companies have been implementing AI, which will likely lead to worsening layoffs down the line

Try Jellyfin. Much better

Plex is available in a lot more app stores than Jellyfin or Emby is. I run a plex server for friends but I use emby for my personal consumption. The reason I continue to use plex is because it's available on all sorts of smart TV's and semi-obscure streaming devices that Jellyfin isn't.

Agreed, but I have a feeling I'll be using Jellyfin in a few years.

well depends who's asking. Are you a shareholder, or a common man?

It will. As someone who only uses Plex, I’m sure the company will have to strive so hard after monetization that they’ll ruin the product and force us onto an open source alternative. I like Plex, but I don’t expect it to last after seeing all the other tech companies fail at this.

As someone who’s been laid off, it always annoys me when people at the top try to act all hurt. Their name was never brought up as a potential layoff. The decision wasn’t nearly as hard as getting laid off.

Those who made the decision to go after the FAST market and lose money aren’t the ones getting laid off, it’s the ones who followed and built it. The risky outcome was never on the heads of those deciding to take the risk.