Thanks for the input! I do eventually plan on making some scripts and a custom web interface to interact with/expose some local services on my network once I have the basics of HTML covered as part of a portfolio thing so would like to cover my ass early and not have problems later
From what Ive seen in arguments about this, Plex generally is more accessible with QoL and easier to understand interface for non-techie people to share with family/friends. Something thats hard for nerdy people to understand is that average people are perfectly fine paying for digital goods and services. An older well off normie has far more money than sense and will happily pay premiums just to not have to rub two braincells together with setup or for a nicer quality of experience. If you figure out how to make a very useful plug-an-play service that works without the end user of average intelligence/domain knowledge stressing about how to set up, maintain, and navigate confusing layouts, you’ve created digital gold.
This isn’t the fault of open source services you can only expect so much polish from non-profit voulenteer. Its just the nature of consumer laziness/expectation for professional product standards and the path/product of least resistance.
I volunteer as developer for a decade old open source project. A sizable amount of my contribution is just cooking up decent documentation or re-writting old doc from the original module authors written close to a decade ago because it failed me information wise when I needed it. Programmers as it turns out are very ‘eh, the code should explain itself to anyone with enough brains to look at it’ type of people so lost in the sauce of being hyperfluent tech nerds instantly understanding all variables, functions, parameters, and syntax at very first glance at source code, that they forgot the need for re-translation into regular human speak for people of varying intelligence/skill levels who can barely navigate the command line.
Pangolin.