Maybe (HBO) Max Just Isn’t Worth It
Maybe (HBO) Max Just Isn’t Worth It
Once a fan favorite, Max shed 700,000 subscribers in the past three months, even as it made money. That might work for Warner Bros. Discovery, but what about viewers?
Maybe (HBO) Max Just Isn’t Worth It::Warner Bros. Discovery's latest earnings call reveals Max shed 700,000 subscribers in the past three months, even as it made money. That might work for Wall Street, but what about viewers?
I just for the life of me cannot understand why all these companies thought it was a good idea to invest the time, money, resources, infrastructure, maintenance, and so many other things into developing their own service. Instead of just pawning off their content to some other sap who has to do all that shit for you. And making them pay you a pretty penny because you know they want your content. It's just such incredible short-sightedness from companies that are constantly just chasing the biggest dollar. Like if anyone thought about it for a minute, all these companies would see that it wasn't worth it to develop these services. They got scared cuz Netflix made some of its own good content. But realistically, if they just calm down they would have realized that Netflix can't make bangers forever. And they're still going to be invested in buying content from you. These big company should have gotten together and figured out how to reduce the price of cable so people fucking sign up for it and keep watching the mass amount of fucking ads.
"Man, selling books online is so much hassle, we'll let Amazon do it for us..."
Borders Books, 2001.
The difference is, Borders wasn't creating books. They were just the middleman. It would be more like if individual publishers decided to all start their own book stores to compete with Amazon.
To be fair, they also did a Borders Rewards program that didn't cost anything. They didn't change the prices of the books, but they gave them huge discounts. Which meant the 40-50% of can't from Borders cut. And they pushed them HARD. Everyone had coupons. It was thought that this would get them loyalty over Barnes and Noble. It took maybe a full quarter for them to realize and backtrack the huge discounts, but it was too late. People used them for the coupons, and then bought everything else online or at Barnes and Noble. It was a fast track to profit loss.
Source: I worked there before the Amazon partnership, and after the board admitted they needed to walk back the rewards.
Amateurs making key decisions.
Yep. Costs a bunch of money upfront and ongoing to operate a streaming service, and even more to make even just an alright one. Plus you split consumers which will naturally give you and competitors fewer subscribers over all. All of that just to get paid directly instead of just getting free money, even if less per-view.
much less per view. They tried this initially. Studios had stuff on Netflix remember? Back when netflix was worth subscribing to.
This was because netflix was just some free extra money on the side, kind of like selling a tv show to a foreign network. But then netflix ate into their actual money from network broadcast. So now they need to get serious and charge netflix a license fee for the show that reflects that.
They upped the license fees for the show and netflix just didn't pick them up. All your favourite shows dropped from netflix and the studios had to build their own services.
They saw Netflix was making a lot more money from their content and wanted s piecd of that pie. Now they’re slowly realizing it takes quite a while to get there.
I'm pretty sure that's how Hulu started. A joint venture through several companies to stream all their shows. Problem is once Disney got in everyone else tried to spin up their own and cash out of Hulu.
It'll be investing to see what alternatives crop up one piracy makes it's comeback.
They all hoped their own service would dominate and incorporate all competition.
Which is short-sighted.
why all these companies thought it was a good idea to...developing their own service.
Because they make more money?
Once they fired the old CEO that partnered with Warner Brothers and had a streaming-first mindset, the service has gone way down hill. Most of the new content is dumb shit like syndicated reality shows.
I may tune back in for the occasional series releases like Rightous Gemstones, but then I'm out.
A different kind of pirate!
There are difficulties with pirating. I had friends over to watch the Singles Inferno 2 finale, but didn't have Netflix so I torrented it. The download made it to 95% before stalling. The video player on my roku tv would move on to the next episode whenever it encountered a glitch, so it was unwatchable.
I'm sure it works better for good shows, but if you want to watch trash, pirating isn't as easy as it used to be.
Pirating is way easier than it used to be, you just can't expect torrents to be grabbed immediately. Modern setups like an *arr stack with a bunch of configured trackers (or even better, usenet) will find basically anything you want, trash included, with enough seeds to avoid stalls. The niche stuff might need to run for a day or two, but it'll finish.
I’m kinda over paying for it. I really only got it for Jon Oliver and it’s basically free on YouTube so idk. Also on my computer I click on my Max bookmark and it’s like “hey we’re not HBO max anymore! Now it’s just Max! Redirecting you now…”
What? Am I going crazy? What is even the point of that.
Rebranding is a way of indicating that they’ve done something (hopefully worth paying more for) without really doing anything at all. Great way for a new executive to make a non-decision.
It never was. I canceled after the end of Game of Thrones and never saw a point in paying their extremely high prices. Just like my house never had HBO growing up, I saw no need to get it now
Honestly I stopped playing video games a few years back and picked it back up during the writes strike. Dropped like $4,000 on a 7800x3d/4090 build. Cancelled all my steaming services , HBO Netflix, all of em, and signed up for game pass instead. I'm done watching stuff on them, if a series comes out I really want to see I'll grab my wooden leg and eye patch from the back of th closet.
I commend you on taking your own entertainment in your hands, but I also find it ironic that you cancelled your streaming services which cost nowhere near 4 grand. If you drop 50 a month on subscriptions, it would take about 6.6 years to spend 4 grand, but it's much more complex than that and I totally think that a gaming setup is worth so much more than streaming so I get it.
You realize I didn't build my PC because I stopped watching streaming I built my PC because I wanted to build a new one and get back into gaming. You realize this computer will last years before I need any sort of upgrade? Lmao I swear some people are just so insufferable with their "insights". I stopped paying for streaming because it's expensive and there was nothing to watch, now that the writers strike is over I don't care because I spend my time gaming instead which I actually enjoy more.
I waited for the service to be available in my country for a very long time, now I don't care 🏴☠️
Well yeah, I've watched the new season of Harley Quinn, what else am I waiting around for?
Our Flag Means Death is pretty good.
IMO Max is far more worth it’s cost than Netflix, if for nothing else but the HBO shows and the selection of licensed movies.
I’m not holding my breath that it’ll continue to be worth it though, especially if they decide to go the Netflix route and churn out cheap reality TV.
Netflix seems to hold on to content for as long as possible, but HBO is going the route of removing content to avoid paying residuals to cast and crew. Frankly, because of that terrible decision, I'm relieved to see people leaving. That's right; I subscribed and they removed West World right as I started it. I'm bitter, but mostly, that's just a nasty thing to do to the cast and crew of shows that people love.
Also, side tangent. What the hell is with modern marketing firms getting into the brains of c-suites and talking them into destroying their brand? I mean, "Max"? WTF? HBO has been a household name since the 80s; everyone knows it, there was no need for a change. You know what Max is to most people? Cinemax, another household name from the 80s. Just stupid.
Every time I go to buy cat food I have to hunt down the bag, because some asshole talked them into a logo/design/name change. They're changing something their customers look for, because some marketer is rattling around in their heads. It's maddening.
People ask me where my wife works, and I can't remember the name, because some marketer talks them into a revamp every 2 years.
Did everyone just graduate from the Elon Musk School of Dumb Marketing Decisions? PLEASE STOP, DAMMIT!
It's the least watched service in my household. It's only still in our streaming subscriptions because of the low, very low price I've got in the first few weeks when t It was introduced here in NL.
I find the new "max" content bad. It's not at the same level as the HBO series. My family just doesn't bother with it.
The moment the new pricing and rebranding comes over here wil Probably be the moment I cancel.
House of dragons and the last of us is not enough to keep paying monthly.
Our household watches netflix, prime, youtube, disney+, skyshowtime (paramount) and lastly max.
I find the new "max" content bad. It's not at the same level as the HBO series. My family just doesn't bother with it.
Agreed. The only way the service holds up is the remnants of HBOMax. The new content seems like a desperate attempt to mimic the Netflix strategy of churning out a lot of low-production-cost content.
I don't know, because all I do is pirate. I used to use Netflix five or six years ago, but it went to shit enough where pirating just became easier again.
Where does one find a decent eBook torrent server. Asking for a friend who reads. He speaks Canadian, you wouldn't know him.
Does it have to be a torrent server?
Why not use something like https://annas-archive.org/
myanonamouse
Amazing site.
When I saw that Blue Beetle was out on physical before streaming, I just went ahead and pulled the plug.
I prefer physical anyway, and if they aren't streaming the newest content, what's even the point?
Because it's a lot cheaper and more convenient?
Fuck em
In the east EU I am paying 4,66EUR monthly for HBO Max service, which we share in 5 households. That is under 1EUR for each household. I will gladly pay that instead of downloading whatever already is on HBO Max.
They're still fairly cheap in Europe and I really looked forward on getting to see their content a couple of years back, but now it looks like most of it could just as easily be shown on another platform like Disney or Netflix. There's no real depth in most of it. I'll keep hanging on watching shows like Insecure, but I wonder whether I'll keep the account in future.
I’ve subscribed to them once a month each year these past three years, literally only to catch His Dark Materials. Now that that’s over I don’t see what else they have to offer.
It hasn't been worth it for me since GoT. I didn't pay for it directly back then, either, though. It's always been included with some other service I was already paying for. There were brief gaps when I didn't have it through something else, but it was never worth paying for in those moments.