Obviously Max is going to stop letting you share passwords soon
Frankly, we're surprised that the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned streaming service didn't crack down on this sooner
Aux News Max
It was all over the moment the first person decided to open up their own wallet and accept the fact that they could no longer mooch off of someone else’s Netflix account. And by “it” we mean society in general. It’s been all downhill since July of last year, when Netflix gleefully announced that very few people had actually canceled their subscriptions over the company’s decision to crack down on people who were sharing passwords and that a good number of former password borrowers actually signed up for their own accounts. Disney barely waited a month before announcing that it would also stop letting people share passwords, first with Disney+ and more recently (with a more aggressive stance) Hulu.
And now, in a move that is only surprising because we assumed it had already happened, Max is also going to start cracking down on password sharing. Really, if there was ever going to be a password you were allowed to share in the entire history of passwords, there’s no way in hell it was ever going to be Max. It’s owned by a guy whose favorite hobby is twisting a piano wire around Wile E. Coyote’s neck in front of his friends and family so they can see the life drain out of his eyes. You think that guy is okay with you sharing your Max password? You think he won’t miss that $10-$20 a month? Get real.
Anyway, J.B. Perrette, Warner Bros. Discovery’s President/CEO Of Global Streaming And Games announced the upcoming crackdown at the 2024 Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom conference this week, where it was surely met with the sort of uproarious applause that is normally reserved for a new Avengers trailer being shown in San Diego Comic-Con’s famous Hall H. This comes from Variety, which says Perrette even noted how “extremely” successful Netflix’s password crackdown was, and so he expects this to be “another growth opportunity” for Max. (Again, the sort of crowd that would attend this Morgan Stanley conference probably went nuts for that.)
We don’t know when Max’s anti-sharing crackdown will begin, but Perrette noted that it will be “starting later this year and into ’25.” Hey, they’ve gotta pay for that extremely necessary Harry Potter TV show somehow, right?
As for what you can do as a consumer, maybe consider not falling for this at some point? See, it’s not just that these companies are milking their users, it’s that they’re just operating on the assumption that they can do it and that they can keep doing it forever. Prices are going to keep going up and the services are going to keep getting worse as long as we all just keep mindlessly keep throwing money at companies like WBD and Netflix and Disney.
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This is particularly sad given that Richard Plepler, formerly the CEO of HBO, 10 years ago explicitly said that the company did not care if people shared passwords, because they were so confident the brand was so strong (at the time, it was miles ahead of anyone in television) that anyone mooching off it then would be hooked and become a customer for life.This new announcement is not just Zaslav caring about nothing but the bottom line; it’s also an indication of how muddy the former prestige HBO brand came when it fused with fucking Cinemax and then vanished altogether.At least Apple TV came around, for as long as that lasts.
I mean, Netflix openly joked about account-sharing on their official Twitter account for years. The time for “building goodwill” is over, the time for “pay up, bitch” is upon us.
It should be quite obvious how the techbro-startup business model works now, and how fucking awful it is:1) Burn up easy venture capital giving away shit for a loss to “build goodwill” and “grow customer base” (and, also, kill off- er, “disrupt” any other competing business models) and race to the bottom with patently unprofitable shit. 2) Once you’ve established market dominance, raise prices.Note that if you’re a founder, there’s a step 1.5: sell out to Google/Amazon/Facebook/Microsoft/Apple before you get to step 2 so you’re not left holding the raise-prices bag.
But no one (Max especially) has “market dominance.” You have lots of streaming options other than Max. So your description of the “techbro startup business model” doesn’t make sense.It’s really very normal for companies to discount prices early on in the life of a product to get people to try it, then raise the prices once customers are already used to buying it. That’s not some new conspiracy by techbros — it’s also the way new kinds of Oreos are sold.Surely you didn’t think streaming services were going to be OK forever with people stealing their product? That would be insane.
At no point did I suggest that any of these cunts were good at it.
It’s not a question of whether they’re good at it or not. Max doesn’t have market dominance, period. It just doesn’t. You’re just wrong about how the economics here work.Yes, you can raise prices in an unfair way when you have some kind of monopoly. But no one has a monopoly here, least of all Max. You can also raise prices because you have a product people want, and you think enough customers will pay more for it to make up for those who will leave because of the price increase. People like House of the Dragon, and White Lotus, and talking about how much they dislike And Just Like That. So HBO can sometimes raise prices and make more money that way.This is not some unique thing. This is how prices work on literally every product sold. When prices go up on Oreos, it’s not because Oreos have any kind of dominance over the market for food, or cookies, or whatever. It’s because people like Oreos and may keep buying them even if it costs them a little more.Also, remember that by getting rid of password sharing, Max is getting rid of users who aren’t paying. From the company’s perspective, it’s obvious why they don’t place a particularly high value on the experience of people freeriding on the money paid by others for Max.
No matter what could be, capitalism and enshittification will always have someone defending it… = |
Yeah, if there’s anything Communist countries are known for, it’s producing amazing TV.
There being WORSE options doesn’t mean capitalism doesn’t have major flaws, especially as it currently functions.
We’re talking about an entertainment product. Even if it costs too much, who cares? Then it’s basically a Ferrari — something that costs too much, which is why people decide not to buy it.Of all the places to rant about capitalism, the entertainment industry is the silliest place, because it’s selling a product no one needs, and that you can just decide not to buy, with basically no consequences to you at all.And if not capitalism, and not communism, what’s your preferred option. Socialism, where our tax dollars . . . subsidize Max?
I would argue your point is only true individually, not in totality. In other words, and not to get too pretentious it, any individual piece of art is luxury, but to call entertainment in general something no one needs is just not really true. Art has existed in literally every civilization since the dawn of humanity. There’s something in the human mind that needs it as much as food and air.As I said in the other post, capitalism is the best option available, but that isn’t really saying much. I think there’s a lot that can be done to moderate the worst impulses and effects of capitalism, and not nearly enough of those things are being done, largely because of the outsize political power of the massively wealthy.
I totally agree with the value of art and entertainment in a total way. But we’re talking about Max here, one of a handful of large-ish streaming services, and only a very small part of a larger ecosystem of ways to see movies or watch TV, and TV itself being only one of the ways humans entertain themselves..And I also can’t help but notice the weird conflict in the argument. If you think Max is so important that its absence threatens entertainment as a whole, then people should be willing to pay $16 a month for it. If you’re not willing to pay $16 for it, then that also probably means your point about the value of entertainment is overstated in this context.And I don’t think capitalism is perfect, by any means. But I also think a lot of people engage in lazy, college seminal-level critiques of capitalism that often feel like . . . annoyance at having to pay for stuff. Like, Christ, pay for the streaming service of don’t.
It’s one of the favourite position of the intellectually unserious: “Yes, but this isn’t the shittiest thing. So shut up.”
You know what? I’m deleting something I wrote that was snarky.Suffice to say I disagree with you, for the reasons I’ve explained at length already.
“It’s one of the favourite position…”
You do sound like a serious one, Borat! 😀 😀 😀
Remember Max: on the internet, there are no insufferable dweebs, only temporarily-embarrassed techbros…
Fine, replace dominance with “market position” if it makes you feel better and will stop you snapping your mechanical keyboard in twain.
How is Max using it’s “market position” here? Spell it out in a couple sentences here. Because you seem to be using these terms to suggest some level of economic exploitation, without ever explaining what you mean.Do you just mean that there as some people who want to watch the shows Max has, so they are willing to pay for Max? Because that’s what every company does.
Again, if you want to watch TV, you have lots and lots of options, some of them larger than Max. You have Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV, Amazon, Disney+, a bunch of smaller streamers, broadcast and cable TV, YouTube, etc. You’re only forced to pay for Max if you want to see the specific programming on Max. But that’s no different from saying that if I specifically want a Toyota, I have to pay what it costs to buy a Toyota.
i agree with your second point about discounting to build consumer relationships and then bringing the price up once people have gotten used to something… but this industry literally pays my bills and your comment is still really funny to me. “stealing”, lmao. my bosses and my departmental bottom line benefit from the poor spending habits / lack of vision, pride and creativity exhibited by these giant companies who take zero interest and put zero effort into the work they put out (unless it’s some typical disappointing bullshit) so you can’t tell me that they’re spending their money wisely and that password sharing, which they have historically permitted, is a form of theft. don’t ask don’t tell in this case is still implied permission. they’re allowed to discontinue something like this at their own discretion of course, but best practice would be to offer a higher price for more seats vs killing customer goodwill altogether. hell, they’ve already made a big effort to kill any goodwill they had with their writers, talent, and the supporting industries that work to make their content, so why try to do business honestly with anyone? eh?oh damn dude looks like the snake is eating its own tail again dude. damn. that sucks. guess we as the public and not the people running these abysmal companies have only ourselves and not their dipshit ceos, boards, etc to blame
Lol….all this means is everyone is going to drop Max
Why would the people paying for Max drop it? Out of . . . solidarity with people who weren’t paying for Max but using it anyway?
It’s not “new” per se, but the techbros have really made it into a formula and combined it with all the worst aspects of capitalism. It’s essentially the Bain Capital model for entire industries.
This seems to me more like the thinking that destroyed journalism — people get used to getting something for free that they used to pay for, then get indignant at the idea that the thing costs money. Here, a lot of people got used to the idea that they should just get to see whatever TV shows they want without paying for them, either using illegal downloads or password sharing. And now they’re mad at the fact that someone might think that they might have to decide whether to pay to see House of the Dragon or save the money, but not see it.I don’t get it. Max costs $16 a month right now. If you and your date go to a movie, you likely spend more than that. But I don’t see that same anger that the movie theater charges you money, and that a bunch of your friends don’t get to come in the door because you bought a ticket.
“Here, a lot of people got used to the idea that they should just get to see whatever TV shows they want without paying for them,”
Because asking people to pay for something that used to be free is always going to be a harder sell than asking people to get something for free than they used to pay for?Re: the difference between a movie theater and watching TV in your house… you can argue about the value of the experience itself and whether or not seeing a movie costs too much (and I probably wouldn’t disagree), but it IS a different experience than watching at home. At least in theory, the sound is better, the picture is better, and most of all, it’s a reason not to do anything else while the show is going on.But more to the original point, I don’t have a problem in concept with companies working to avoid password sharing, I just think they’re all a bit goofy about it. You really can’t stop people from doing it without undercutting the transportability of the product.
As for capitalism, I hardly think it can be argued that the it doesn’t have massive problems. It’s just that (to paraphrase Churchill), it’s the worst option except for all the other ones.
You’re forgetting step 0: Make the product/industry slightly shittier than the way it worked before, trusting that step 1 (giving it away for free or significant undercutting) will carry you past the decrease in quality.
Then, in step 3, you can completely ignore all quality concerns, since your monopoly is firmly entrenched, and all the legacy businesses in the industry are crippled or gone.
Yup. The techbros – as much as they refuse to admit it, because it would put them on the same plane as waitresses or plumbers or road workers – are in the service industry. They hate that. They don’t want to admit they’re just a slightly jumped-up version of the guy they mock at McDonalds who has to ask them if they want fries with their Happy Meal (that they bought because it comes with a Naruto toy).The actual creators? People who make things? They don’t understand ‘em, and they’re more than envious of the position they occupy in society.Techbros’ goals are to make themselves, somehow, more valuable than anyone else. They can’t create, so the best they can hope to be is the landlords of creation – decide who gets to have what they make made accessible to others, who does, and sit in the middle skimming a cut.There’s a reason why their business models (before the inevitable sell-off to Google or Apple or Whoever) rely on subscriptions – rents – either from the consumers or advertisers (well, that’s the theory; mostly they’re just sucking on the dripping teats of venture capital – when that runs out, eeep, that’s when you’ve got to go to Step 2). They don’t see the value in, say, you making an interesting video, or writing a thought essay, or reporting on a well-sourced news article, or drawing a beautiful picture. None of them has the cultural capability to properly assess that. Instead, they think the – the only value – is in laying out the website, or writing the app, or inserting seamless ads into your essay, or coding in a new sharpening filter for image editing software or new set of fonts for your word processor – or a new payment system (with extra dark patterns! That make it hard to unsubscribe!) In fact, your creativity is only valuable in as much as it gives them an opportunity to do this.Soooo…fuck “quality content”. Who cares? You can’t, like, measure quality, bruh, so therefore there’s no right or wrong, good or bad. The only thing you can do is grab as much of the pie as possible, hoard as much as you can so you become the only game in town, and then piss on everyone else. (Sure, you’ve now lumped in good content with shitty content that taints the experience of the good content. But you can’t tell, and no one’s in any position now to tell you otherwise or change that! Welcome to Netflix, you’re greenlit!)Of course, the enshittification takes over. The VCs get bored with handing out money to you like you’re their PA who’s pissed you grabbed her boobs at the office party and is thinking of suing.And then…people stop accessing your content. (Well, using you to access the content you hold the keys to.) No matter how hard you force ‘em, even though you’re the only game in town. And here comes the death spiral. Users start dropping off. You ban password sharing, or increase ads, or up subscription rates, or introduce more service tiers, or you fire all the good, expensive creators you hired at the beginning and replace them with shit-tier hacks who will get to coast along a bit on the goodwill your operation built up when it had good creators – or all of the above, and more. This bleeds more users, and the revenue hikes don’t cover this, so you have to up the rates…on and on…Meanwhile, whatever industry colonised and pillaged is like bleeding on the metaphorical floor. You’ve strip-mined it, and, ugh, who wants to deal with a Superfund site? Sell it off, get out, as the landscape burns behind you because you did not give a single shit about it beyond the money it could make you (and the aura you thought it gave you).But before you move onto you next gimmick, or retire to Thailand (where you’ll finally get an Asian girlfriend!) make sure you write a Substack newsletter about how no one wants to write/make films/music/do journalism any more, and no wonder that industry’s dead…
Well, if I wasn’t depressed before…
in a move that is only surprising because we assumed it had already happened, Ain’t that the truth. When I saw this story, I thought “what do you mean Zaslav hadn’t done that yet?” I figured he’d have done that and jacked up the price on top of it in like, month 1 of his tenure.
A company is not “milking their users” by expecting them to pay for a service. If you’re mad at Warner Bros and don’t want to pay for Max, great. If you think Max has gotten worse, that’s a good reason not to pay for it. But you don’t get to say, “Max has gotten so terrible, there’s nothing on it anymore,” while simultaneously lamenting that you can’t see stuff on Max anymore.
This. Fuckin’ freeloaders.
God damn nazis, stop stanning for giant corporations and supporting violent coups, please!
They do realize that Netflix is lying about that data right? I have not seen any reporting outside of them that said more people bought subs because of the pass crackdown.
“As for what you can do as a consumer, maybe consider not falling for this at some point?”I mean…I get it. They absolutely are milking their customers. But is this really the issue on which to take a stand? It does make sense that they want each household to have its own password, right? I know why we don’t like it but it is fundamentally fair of them to ask this.What we can stop falling for is the nickel and diming and the rate increases without any accompanying increase in service.
In other news, I’m still using my friend in Toronto’s Netflix account. Eight years counting.
If they are going to start expecting me to pay for MAX, at least bring back Skinamax!
The only time Max was cool was that brief period they were putting all their new movies on there. Granted most of them were terrible, but Dune was good!I get it for free for some reason, I forget from what. Pretty much only use it for Last Week Tonight and torrent everything else. A VPN + Plex server running on an old computer is the best streaming service, by a mile.
Just like with Netflix, there isn’t really any way to STOP password sharing, though. Either you lock accounts to one device/IP address (a non-starter for anyone who ever wants to use the account outside of the house), you charge people more for multiple simultaneous streams (the obvious, effective solution), or you just say you’re cracking down and hope that a few borrowers get their own accounts.
Is there an option I’m forgetting?
They charge people for multiple silmultaneous uses. Maybe this is semantic, but yeah, that is a way to stop sharing passwords.
I did include that option. It’s the only one that makes sense to me.
“As for what you can do as a consumer, maybe consider not falling for this at some point? See, it’s not just that these companies are milking their users, it’s that they’re just operating on the assumption that they can do it and that they can keep doing it forever.”What are people falling for, in this context? Having to pay for labeled things?What is milking here? Charging for use?It’s cost/benefit for all parties involved. Consumers aren’t always innocent waifs in capitalism.