I hope I have never done this to anyone 🥺

Don't spy on your users. Sure, you'll happen to see something once in awhile or when troubleshooting, but don't go looking. It's bad for you and for them.

Watching what my friends and family do is THE ONLY payment I get for doing all this shit. I like to see that they are enjoying all the work I put into it. Its not like I am selling their usage to fucking advertisers or something.

And they know you are watching them?

I can't get any of my friends to use my jellyfin instance. They login once, look around, and then go back to complaining about streaming prices

Yeah. I openly talk to them about it all the time. The fact that watching my friends and family's usage on my free service that I provide for them is somehow controversial is wild...

Just know you might be making them uncomfortable. I'm sure they have no expectation of privacy, but don't go out of your way to check on them, and don't call them out on their viewing habits. I have friends whom are uncomfortable as it is using my homelab because they are afraid of being judged. I'd echo the others here, don't spy on your users...

I don't call them out and never said that I did. I am sure my friend since the 3rd grade, my brother or my mother will be shocked at my behavior.

I also provide this type of thing for friends and family for free (because I love them), and because payment would make me feel obligated beyond what I feel like doing. It sounds like you've made them aware, which is good. I also tell my friends that I can see what they watch, but that I don't. You do you, but your meme suggested something unhealthy to me.

I don't know why people are downvoting you. I stopped using my friend's server when I realized he was watching everything we were doing. Really weirded me out.

Nah. Friend was doing some "Plex and Chill" and it worked out well for them.

when they watch an entire movie in 2mbit 720p from a 4K HDR source and you know they have a proper TV and a shield pro.

I openly talk to them about it all the time.

I guess I was responding to this along with the content of your post.

I just don't talk about it and make it a point not to. I talk about what I'm watching. I talk about that my friends have requested shows/movies on the server that I ended up enjoying as well. I never talk about what they are watching or not watching.

I'm sorry if I got the wrong impression from your comments and post, but I just got the sense that you maybe brought up with them that you were sad that your friend didn't finish your favorite movie. If I were a friend with whom that was brought up with, I would think twice about what I pulled up on your server. That shows to me that my behavior is being watched and monitored, which isn't a great feeling, free service provided by a friend or not. Again, sorry if that's not the case here and you can disregard entirely, but this is just not how I talk to the friends and family about using my Jellyfin server.

It's not terrible. I would do the same as you before reading this post, and maybe I would after. I do think they have a point, though.

Mostly I'd watch it to see if it's being used or not.

Maybe Jellyfin could come out with an option to make things semi-anonymous. You'd be able to just click it off, but it wouldn't show you details unless you explicitly asked for them.

On the other hand, I'm very aware that if I were to use someone's Plex that their "payment" would be the satisfaction of seeing their service used. I wouldn't mind the stats they collect, but the fact that they collect them would be at the forefront of my mind.

People with access to my Jellyfin:

Last login: 10 months ago

For some reason my friends love to pay for 628 different streaming services.

I have a friend group that loves dumb American shows playing as background noise, think My Big Fat Gypsies Wedding and Swamp People. It's hard to easily find all the seasons for them, so my jellyfin instance is a perfect place for them to live 😄

In my experience, all it takes is one instance where a stream buffers or needs to transcode down to a lower quality. There are a lot of variables between your home server and someone else’s smart tv or set top box. Streaming services are really good at accounting for most of that and making it work reliably. I am sure most of our media servers are way less reliable, especially outside the home.

I think you're right. My brother was on someones Plex for awhile once. And one day the owner asked him how he was liking xyz show he was watching.

Innocent enough, but still weirded him out. He stopped using it immediately after that. Doesn't want to be observed, even casually.

I keep thinking about adding my own custom intros that are just free awkward stock videos or smoke effects with fart sounds. But I'm worried that'll make fewer people watch.

My son is an avid watcher of my jellyfin, and that’s more than enough for me to feel it’s worth all the effort I’ve put in it. He even asks me sometimes to add this show or that movie and I freaking love it.

Have you asked them why they don't use it? It may be something as simple as missing content, or it might be the UI they don't like.

I mostly check if my SIL is watching anything before rebooting & updating. Otherwise my wife will stick her head in two minutes later to ask if jellyfin is down.

yeah, they just say "didn't have time" or just never login at all and say they forgot about it.

I've checked to make sure it all functions smoothly outside of my network. I've got 200tb of stuff so missing content isn't really an issue, and there's overseerr via radarr/sonarr for requesting content that isn't there already.

Tbh I generally take 3 goes to make it through a movie. My brain is so fried I can't sit and watch it in one sitting.

That's the tricky part about self-hosting and it doesn't get addressed enough. There are virtually zero apps designed with user privacy in mind.

Yeah. OP got them laid was my first thought.

Plex and Chill
Jellyfin and Impregnate

I am sure my friend since the 3rd grade, my brother or my mother will be shocked at my behavior.

You'd be surprised. People get very antsy when it comes to what they think is a private thing. You're absolutely allowed to look at it, but understand that watching everything your users do is essentially traveling down the exact same road we are trying to avoid with big tech - watching, monitoring, and analyzing our data.

I disclose that I can see your activity, bit realistically it's so I can see how the encoding process is half a world away. They don't seem to complain about the quality so seems good to go for me.

Also I wish they sent me notes of which shows has offset subtitles. Can't watch them all myself

I agree that's looking for conflict

Plex and Chill Jellyfin and Impregnate Jellyfin and Masturbate

Uh, I do not look at what my users are watching. Is a little creepy.

Because you're trying to make them use Jellyfin remote.

Nobody ever invited me to login to their jellyfin

Its not that insane or creepy tho, ppl do it all the tome when sharing streaming profiles