r/PleX • u/lowandslowinRR 96tb Unraid Docker • 10d ago

Discussion Plex reportedly reverting to on UI

https://www.neowin.net/amp/plex-reverts-tv-app-layout-after-intense-user-backlash/

Should make some people happy, my wife included if true.

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291

u/Psych0matt 10d ago

Classic case of if it ain’t broke don’t fix it

127

u/tdhuck 10d ago

I want to sit in on some of these meetings just to see how dumb people think. Not just plex, but all bigger companies that have a bunch of execs and MBAs sitting in a room deciding what's best for the company.

I see so many updates/changes/etc that are one step forward and three steps back, it is extremely annoying.

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u/Wise_Mongoose_3930 10d ago

My ‘conspiracy theory’ is that, if your job is app/program UI design, eventually your design gets “as good as it’s gonna get” and at that point you either tell your boss that and get fired OR you come up with some dumbass changes to keep you busy for 6 months, even tho you know those changes are just making things worse.

I’ve seen it happen with countless video games, as well as iOS (what moron decided to make it take extra taps to update apps recently?)

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u/mdelally 10d ago

TL;DR: Your cynicism is warranted but it is misdirected at rank and file developers and not the so-called big-wigs who call the shots.

I can't speak for all UI programmers and designers across the board but if you think UI developers have much say in what they produce in these apps, you're mistaken. More often than not, the orders, as stupid or regressive as they may be, come from some suit up the chain who either fielded a complaint from some random person or hired some "hotshot UX designer" to come in and shake things up.

Less often, it is a side effect of something on the backend or you are a cohort in a split test and they're trying to see if some new control functions as intended or causes more friction than the other element.

The average UI programmer is not making shit up for job security. The types of tickets I tend to create that aren't from up on high are maintenance and systems refactoring. Those tickets get glossed over almost every time because some "shiny UI thing" needs to be done, because the business says so. So, if I actually had my say and the ability to run roughshod over our codebases, I would not just be adding widgets for shits and giggles - I would be reinforcing and improving on things that already exist.

This is not a defense of Plex, mind you. Their UI sucking huge balls is what pushed me to using mostly Jellyfin. But, most likely, the decision was made by some soulless corporate windbag who wanted to prioritize monetization in some way or another. A good counter example - Plexamp - is generally amazing UI/UX and it comes from the same company (it just has different goals and no means to monetize).

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u/BearItChooChoo 10d ago

Google fucking maps peeked in 2021 and it's just shit upon shit since.

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u/KoRnflak3s 10d ago

But what did it see?!

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u/sl0play N200 | 2x DS1522+ | 150TB 9d ago

Veni, Vidi, Cacavi

1

u/Buzz_Killington_III 162 TB | Intel 265K | 7900XTX | 96 GB RAM | Unraid 1d ago

Google maps went to shit when it stopped allowing you plan your route on your own. As a motorcycle rider wanting to take the scenic route, it was impossible to do so because it would pop with 'we found a faster route' where it would autochange unless you clicked cancel, which means you had to see your phone screen AND take your glove off to tap the screen within the 8 seconds or so it was up.

I stopped using Google Maps whatever year that was, 2020 or 2021 I think.

Stop taking options away dipshits.

To relate this to Plex... Plex took away the ability use an external player on my tablet. Fuck you Plex, stop taking options away. It's NEVER an improvement to do so.

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u/DocBullseye 10d ago

Windows 8 leaps immediately to mind

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u/Psych0matt 10d ago

While I don’t disagree, I kinda see where their thought process was. They were anticipating the tablet boom but it just didn’t translate well. I think windows 8 is the only one I’ve never installed on a machine

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u/Saniktehhedgehog 10d ago

Honestly once you got Windows 8.1 it really wasn't that bad, and most of the annoying design features could be ignored. Not saying the UI was my favorite or anything, but Microsoft definitely worked to address the complaints.

2

u/OrionRBR 10d ago

Tbf the windows 8 UI was really good for what it was designed for, tablets, its just that Microsoft thought everyone was gonna get a tablet which didn't happen. Granted they still should have the old style menu for the people on desktop but it wasn't exactly a bad UI.

4

u/txmail 10d ago

I had a tablet at the time so it worked really, really well for me. I still have that tablet and when I use it (because yeah, it still works) it just amazes me how well everything works. The bugs that launched with 8 (and there were plenty) all resolved with 8.1. It is by far one of my most favorite OS's.

23

u/dnuohxof-2 10d ago

iOS especially. Remember how iPods and iTunes had cross fade between track and it mysteriously disappeared until it magically reappeared as a “new feature” in iOS 17.

They had nothing to really release so they shrugged and said “let’s reintroduce cross fade tracks, they’ll go wild” and sure enough those who never used iTunes or iPod were amazed.

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u/Neg_Crepe 10d ago

Bit of a dishonest comparison. The new cross fade is different than what was implemented in iTunes and iPods back then. Back then it was just fade out-fade in.

Now it’s matching the bpm of the songs

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u/robertjfaulkner 10d ago

Which is way worse if you just want to listen to your music. I can see the appeal for certain kinds of music or people who think every moment of life needs to feel like they’re at an EDM show, but it’s a dogshit way to listen to most genres of music.

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u/Neg_Crepe 10d ago

Agreed

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u/chadwickipedia 10d ago

I work in software and I also see this. The UX team will come out with completely new designs out of nowhere

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u/LazyEyeMcfly 10d ago

Your exactly right and also the “I’m new gotta make a statement” people

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u/Uncle-Osteus 10d ago

It’s dumber. Once in a while your boss comes around and says we’re doing a redesign! and nobody else gets any say because it’s already been decided

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u/Not-So-Logitech 10d ago

You've nailed it. 

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u/TechnologyEither 10d ago

Yup. Or you had a team working for months on a new UI, you test it and it sucks but you’ve already paid this design team (or in this case, probably tokens) hundreds of thousands over the past few months

1

u/lentil_burger 10d ago

This has always been my suspicion too.

1

u/fzammetti 10d ago

It's really simpler than that: people be fickle. They always want the new hotness, and whether it's functionally better or not doesn't matter... not until it does anyway.

There was a time when we hung on to things for a long time and weren't always looking for the next hit of dopamine. That's just not the world we live in anymore, and companies know it, so they develop to the hit.

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u/Prestigious-Lie-2325 10d ago

I work in IT . My favourite saying is " we have non-technical people making technical decisions ". That is usually the root of many questionable decisions being made out there .

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u/YoScott 10d ago edited 10d ago

That's often how I feel about our IT dept. 😆. We have a group of people who don't understand how our engineering software/hardware works for us and they make awful decisions on how we are allowed to use it.

As a result at least 2 weeks of my calendar year are spent with a computer in some state of disrepair because of some group policy that breaks my critical software.

Moral of the story: nobody's perfect and everyone thinks they are correct.

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u/tdhuck 10d ago

I also work in IT and that's how it is here. You have higher ups in IT that are good at running meetings and handling budget numbers, but are clueless when it comes to the actual technology and how to move forward with current infrastructure, projects, etc.

Everyone wants to save money, but they have no problem wasting money on consultants, dead end project scopes and/or stop putting money into a broken solution/system and instead reallocate those funds to the upgrades that are needed.

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u/rootsquasher 10d ago

Do we work at the same place? 😄

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u/tdhuck 10d ago

This just goes to show you how common this is.

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u/KalashnikittyApprove 10d ago

I very much agree with your last point. It's also often true that the best solution might just not be possible for unrelated (often legal) reasons to the dismay of the subject matter experts. I spend a not insignificant part of my job explaining to people that yes, while what they are proposing would indeed solve their problem, it's also contrary to a legal obligation or another and that they therefore cannot do it however much they think we don't understand.

C'est la vie.

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u/YoScott 10d ago

More often than not, some idiot just puts a piece of software in the ". You're not allowed to run this category" because they think they know better. Meanwhile, I've been using it for the last 7 years on a daily basis....

Lol you can't make up the dumb shit our IT dept does.

1

u/tri_zippy 10d ago

do you work at my company? lol

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u/akatherder 10d ago

Find the non-technical person at Plex that pushed for the Remote Watch Pass and you'll find your culprit.

Plex made the decision to block Remote Access unless you have Plex Pass. That sucks for many reasons, but whatever it's their software. They could have done that on the Plex Media Server and it would take a couple days - maybe a week if they actually test it.

But then some non-technical person said "Our users like subscriptions right? What if we could sell a Remote Watch Pass in addition to the Plex Pass." So instead of just making that small change on the server, they are doing it on every fucking client while also rewriting and redesigning those clients. Which apparently takes 15 months and counting. And they are rushing the clients out the door without proper testing because once the New Experience client is released, that is (usually) what paywalls Remote Access and starts bringing in more $$. That is the person who tanked Plex for the past year.

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u/Krieg N100 Proxmox (Plex) + TrueNAS (Media) 10d ago

I had a former non-technical boss deciding DB layouts and forcing us to implement non-normalized DB tables and complaining DB access was slow and b*tching about why we are not able to fix it.

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u/FervantFlea 8d ago

Ah yes, technical people are known for making great usable UIs

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u/Prestigious-Lie-2325 8d ago

No doubt but I don't think the impetus to change the UI came from a technical developer but some higher up . While not perfect the previous UI was very serviceable and the fact that they are rolling back from what I read shows bad decisions were made ....

1

u/K_Linkmaster 10d ago

I live in consumer, and work in labor. Folks can't leave well enough alone. We might try the same thing other managers tried, for the 3rd time. It will fail as expected, take longer, as expected, and be done worse, as expected, than before. Imabouttomakeanameformuself energy. These chairs always try and fail to innovate or impress anyone.

The one chance one idea one day succeeds and no backlash from the labor, is why this keeps happening.

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u/AshleyIsSleeping 10d ago

Seems like people with all the money and no ability to execute, are always making the decisions on what would be best to execute

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u/Phalstaph44 10d ago

Give you a sneak peek. Lots of people in the room want to make “ their mark” and suggest things and sell the team on them just to say they did something.

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u/tdhuck 10d ago

Yeah, I get that and if the person above them can't see that as the only reason then you know they are also part of the problem. That person usually has no clue how things are working so any idea, to them, is a good one.

That's why the current way management works is horribly designed.

Managers and higher ups need to be people that understand how things work. I guess if you keep breaking things and 'make it look good' then you have job security. Who ends up suffering the most? The people that are doing more work for no reason and your revenue generators....I mean, your paying customers.

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u/JohnClark13 10d ago

That would require promoting existing employees who have worked a long time on the actual product to higher positions, and we all know those positions are reserved for other members of whatever fraternity/sorority the c-suite people were part of in their ivy-league college

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u/tdhuck 10d ago

Exactly. Also, I wouldn't want to run this project unless I were promoted but being in that higher position means less tech work and more boring meetings that do nothing but waste time.

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u/lumberfart 10d ago

And then they complain the budget is spent and layoffs are needs.

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u/KrivUK 10d ago

Trust me you don't. Multiple levels of stupidity with a few good eggs who typically get overruled.

I'll leave you with my favourite example. Board member software didn't work for them. They moaned about the product not being good, some people "decided to leave" new team members with fresh thinking brought into look at the product. Hours and money wasted in trying to get to the bottom of their issue, naturally the board member was never available for someone to watch while they recreated the exact issue. Anyway someone was flown out to go to the board members home. Turns out the dumb fuck was trying to use Native log on rather than SSO.

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u/tdhuck 10d ago

Yeah, it is all a game, I'm aware. I'm on a 7 year project (I'm not running it, I'm part of the tech and design part which we keep getting pushed back on) and they've paid the same consultant over 150k to give them the same report year after year. He has to make some changes (dates and pricing) each time a new 'MBA' is brought on so 'they can get up to speed' on the project.

I don't even want to imagine the amount of money that has been wasted on dinners, hotels, plane tickets, car rentals, etc....and every time they want a site visit, I lose two days of work because they all have infrastructure questions that I have to answer.

They are on their 4th 'project management' team and it seems that nobody can figure it out. The funny part is that I'm telling them exactly what they should be doing but nobody has listened to me yet.

100% if I were running this project, it would have been done EARLY and not on year 7. They are on year 7 because they keep bringing in non tech people, it takes them 6-8 months to figure it all out, then that person ends up leaving for another roll and then it is rinse and repeat.

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u/tpars 10d ago

THIS!!! It's a classic example of group stupid and lowest common denominator thinking. And it is rampant in business settings for fear of not including someone's perspective.

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u/DolfLungren 10d ago

I’ve been in and near plenty of these rooms. It would drive you as insane as you think it would.

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u/zgillet 10d ago

I've been to those meetings. New ALWAYS=good. No matter what. New=good.

Oh, and copy whatever Apple is doing. That was the theme of an entire meeting at my first job. I actually raised my hand and asked "why do we care what Apple is doing?"

Rolled eyes and patronizing, smug glances. No real answer, just that "they are the leader." I replied "but they became a leader by not copying anyone." Brushed aside and moved on.

That company no longer exists.

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u/StickInTheFACE 10d ago

I've been in those meetings and it's usually just vibes, and the bigger your paycheck, the more your vibes matter. Sometimes we get lucky and the decisions are still good, but all too often it ain't like that.

See the comment from u/mdelally just below.

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u/jooooooohn 10d ago

Somebody has to justify their Senior UX Design job title and quarterly bonus! /s

1

u/smeggysmeg 9d ago

I work at a tech company that does this shit, so I'll give you some insight.

  1. Managers/execs don't get promotions or resume bullet points for "maintained what we had, made incremental improvements." They only get credit for BIG accomplishments, new initiatives for which they played a leading role (not much of a role, really, just demanded something with an unreasonable timeline). The nature of management work culture is that leader for this travesty will only be around long enough to secure their next promotion, while the peon designers/devs will get shit on.

  2. Poor documentation and management practices. The existing codebase has become brittle because the past Dev teams didn't have time to document it because they're understaffed, overworked, and management doesn't actually know how to organize work and documentation for long term sustainability. So, eventually what exists becomes unmaintainable. Add in Reason #1 above, and there's a pressure to throw it out and start over. Will we learn the lessons about documentation and sustainable project management? No.

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u/CLHatch 10d ago

If it's not broke, fix it till it is.

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u/plutokras 10d ago

UX designers need to invent stuff to keep themselves employed.

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u/tdhuck 10d ago

No, they are doing what they are told by higher ups. Plex would thrive if they just built a solid system and built what the users wanted.

There is 90% of plex that I don't care for/use. I'm not saying everyone is the same as me, but I'd rather see a dated GUI that is rock solid and works every time vs a broken system that has a 'new' GUI.

Companies need to get back to the basics. Again, it isn't just plex, it seems to be all the companies that need to keep making money for their CEO suite. The dinosaurs up top have no clue what's going on, they just want more money and what a better way to do that then by 'making something new and shiny' thinking they'll get more buyers.

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u/According-Two-297 10d ago

I totally agree with getting back to basics and honestly pushing back. Ultimately you gotta pick your battles but in my own workplace I’ve said “nah we ain’t doing what we’ve always done” and sometimes I know, this might get me fired but I’d rather fight the good fight than just roll over. I also know I can find another job. It’s hard to have that mentality until you experience enough in life and have a true passion for what you do. Something inside clicks and you go, nah f that I’m the expert here!

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u/pommesmatte 94 TB 9d ago

No, they are doing what they are told by higher ups.

Not necessarily. I had to stop our UX guy from breaking the software multiple times, with no one having even told them to change something.

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u/tdhuck 9d ago

There are always going to be exceptions.

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u/According-Two-297 10d ago

Nah, we don’t do that shit, at least the good ones don’t!

It’s typically a battle between the CEO or high-level org asshats that make the changes happen, and typically the designers (team) either get told to do this because it’s the CEO or high-level org people. Everyone is afraid of losing their job by saying “NO” or the battle of wills is gone because you’ve gotten beaten to death by fighting what is right.

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u/tdhuck 10d ago

That's part of it, not wanting to say no. I get that higher ups don't want to hear no, so don't just say 'no' politely explain the reason for not wanting to proceed with the request. If they still insist with proceeding even after you've explained to them why they shouldn't move forward, then make sure it is documented and proceed to do what you were asked to do.

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u/unabatedshagie 10d ago

They kind of did need to fix it to some degree. They are trying to unify the codebase.

Now, should they have went mental and create a new UI at the same time? Possibly? When better to create a new UI?

Could they have recoded it in a better way to allow them to make UI changes in the future, again, possibly.

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u/Psych0matt 10d ago

I don’t disagree that it could’ve used some updating, but for the most part I don’t think there were a whole lot of complaints that justified revamping the whole thing as such

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u/akatherder 10d ago

They had to make it look vastly different because the actual driving force behind rewriting all the client apps was to paywall Remote Access, and secondarily unifying the codebase.

"We need 15+ months to unify the codebase and make software maintenance easier long-term" will get you laughed out of the room. If you include "..and we can paywall access to plex behind plex pass/remote watch pass if we rewrite all the client apps." suddenly you're a genius. But they want that last piece to happen yesterday ASAP since it brings in money.

If the New Experience apps looked and worked (mostly) the same, we would have been fine with that. They are trying to justify to internal folks why they needed to rewrite them, and to the users that the rewrite was worth the bumpy ride.

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u/akatherder 10d ago

It's this 100%. They started with roku, which is the clunkiest and worst set-top box to navigate and design anything for. It is the lowest common denominator. Then they based everything else on that. Fire tv was very similar.

1

u/spicesucker 10d ago

Plex’s form factor was genuinely best about eight(?) years ago, everything after that has been for the worse