Is that bad though? I don’t mind renting a movie I really like even if my friend has it on their Plex. Especially if it’s from a small studio. Currently I do that via Google TV. Plex Inc being a small private company might use the money better than a publicly traded giant. I wouldn’t mind my friends and family spending a few bucks on it either.
Of course if Plex starts enshitifying existing private streaming features to push this, that’ll be another matter altogether. Which would not be unexpected.