Self-Host Weekly (22 May 2026)

750 reasons not to get back with your (Pl)ex

Weekly Highlights

Last week, I "jokingly" encouraged Plex users to consider grabbing a lifetime pass after the platform announced arecent round of price increasesfor customers paying a monthly subscriptionto stream their own media.

And for that – I apologize. I have no solid evidence, but can only assumethis week's decision to triple the lifetime plan cost to $750is a direct response to my repeated insistence that you all PURCHASE A LIFETIME PASS. (If somebody from Plex is actually reading this,please consider sponsoring the newsletter.)

In all seriousness, it's unlikely that Plex actually believes the value of its lifetime pass is $750 (the new mobile experience is still atrocious, after all). At a time when discontinuing lifetime plans is heavily scrutinized, it's a convenient way to 'retire' the subscription without actually getting rid of it. As a bonus, they'll also receive a brief influx of cash from users rushing to purchase at the lower price before the increase takes effect on July 1st.

And while this may be the tipping point that finally pushes some toother alternatives, theJellyfinteam also shared they'll bequadrupling its priceto take advantage of Plex's bad publicity (editor's note: 4 x $0 = $0).

In other news of the stupid,Bitwardenand its new CEObriefly removed'Always Free'from the platform's pricing page,Google is destroying search, and a Twitter userhad the world's worst take on AI.

Other activity you should be aware of:

Happyselfh.st/ing!

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Content Spotlight

MeetTapMap, a lightweight platform for visualizing a machine's outbound internet connections on a map. WithTapMap, users can easily view the various locations their device is connected to from a retro-styled interactive world map. Features include insights, daily activity reports, highlights (new apps, countries, and ports), and detailed activity logs with timelines.

TapMapcan beeasily deployed via Dockerand runs as a single container with no additional dependencies.

Links:Source Code

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Command Line Corner

Use> file.txtto flush the contents of a file from the command line (helpful for clearing old log files when troubleshooting via the CLI):

Clickherefor an archive of commands shared in past newsletters.

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