I had exactly the same experience, at about the same time. Had been hearing good things about Plex so decided to try it out. Immediately noped out when it required me to create an account with them. Similar to you I looked around and found it to be a relatively new change.
Frankly baffling to me that anyone with the wherewithal to self-host was okay with it.
It's a different example but Super Street Fighter II for the SNES was CAD$99.99 in the 1994 Sears Wishbook which is CAD$191 in today dollars.