Following similar crackdowns from Netflix and Disney+, Max (formerly HBO Max) has announced its intentions to stop you from freely sharing passwords across households. In an earnings call Thursday, company Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels said the move would start with “very soft messaging” over the next few months before getting more serious heading into 2025 and 2026.
That at least gives password sharers a bit of time to prepare themselves, although this news doesn’t come as a total surprise. Pointing specifically at Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery streaming head JB Perrette warned back in March that the company was looking into stamping out password sharing as “another growth opportunity.”
Wiedenfels called the plan to cut password sharing “a form of price rises,” saying that the company will start by “asking members who have not signed up, or multi-household members to pay a little bit more.”
While it’s currently unclear exactly how Max will implement the change, Wiedenfels comments imply that, as on Netflix and Disney+, password sharing will still be allowed, just at a premium to your plan. Presumably, the company will announce more details as its efforts to stamp out unpaid password sharing heat up.
The decision comes during what CEO David Zaslav called “generational disruption” in the market (the media mogul specifically called out Joker: Folie à Deux’s “disappointing results” in the box office as an example of the difficulties the company is facing). It’s possible that stopping free password sharing might allow the company to avoid more directly raising subscription prices as it did in June, although Wiedenfels didn’t preclude the possibility of more direct price hikes too.
Emphasizing Max’s “premium nature,” the executive said there is still “a fair amount of room to push a price we’ve been judicious about.” As of now, Max’s ad-supported plan costs $9.99/month, and its ad-free plans start at $16.99/month. By comparison, Netflix’s ad-supported plan will run you $6.99/month, while ad-free plans start at $15.49/month.
Despite the doom and gloom, the company’s Q3 earnings release revealed that Max added 7.3 million subscribers this quarter.
