Bad news for HBO Max fans — and their younger siblings, friends, and roommates. Starting in September, the streaming platform will start an "aggressive" crackdown on password sharing.
This comes from Warner Bros. Discovery's head of streaming JB Perrette. During the company's Q2 earnings call, Perrette said they now have enough data to put the "net in the right place" and catch people watching HBO Max outside of paying households (per Mashable's sibling site PCMag). Instead of the current gentle nudge to pay for their own subscription, the users piggybacking on paying accounts will soon be forced to pay up.
"We feel great about where we are," said Perrette. "Starting in September, you’ll actually start to see the messaging — which right now has been a fairly soft cancelable messaging — start to get more fixed and steps that people have to take action, as opposed to having it be a voluntary process."
Of course, password-sharing has been around since the advent of streaming platforms. It used to be that anyone with a paid account could generously share their login credentials with others — which is how countless ex-boyfriends and former roommates benefited from relationships long after they were over. But the good times couldn't last forever. Streaming platforms quickly realized they were losing out on lucrative new subscriber revenue and began to crack down on password sharing.
Now, many streamers strictly limit the number of devices per account and restrict accounts to users living under the same roof.
Netflix was the first to go after freeloaders, and other platforms swiftly followed. In April, HBO Max introduced the Extra Member Add-On, which allowed users to share their account with someone else — for the monthly price of $7.99.
What can you do to avoid this streaming tragedy?
If you've been the lucky benefactor of someone else's HBO Max login, this looks like the end of the password-sharing road. Based on Perrette's comments, users outside of the designated household restrictions will have to create a new account. That is, unless the account holder is willing to fork over an extra $7.99 a month for you to keep watching your favorite HBO Max shows. Perhaps the unconditional love of a parent will move them to take pity on you.
You could always keep tabs on what's coming to HBO Max and see what's worth paying for. And Just Like That... is coming to an end, so fans of the Sex and the City reboot might also consider the season finale their HBO Max swan song.
And then there's the radically old-school solution of paying for cable. At the rate streaming platforms are hiking up prices and showing yet more ads, paying for cable might be the most economical solution based on your watching habits.
