HBO Max’s New Password Sharing Strategy Will Annoy You Into Paying
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Last year, HBO Max entered the password sharing crackdown fray, joining rivals like Netflix and Disney in taking steps to discourage or even downright block the use of a single subscriber account beyond a single household.
The streaming giant announced the plans in early 2024, in the midst of its two-year phase as just “Max” before sensibly reversing course and adding “HBO” back into the name. It was arguably late to the game among the big players; Netflix started the ball rolling in 2021, ran trials in South America in 2022, and officially began the rollout in early 2023, starting with Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, and Spain in February, followed by the United States in May.
Not long after Netflix went into high gear, Disney announced a similar plan in August 2023, ran the first trials in Canada in September, and began locking things down in the US in February 2024. It was a month after this that (HBO) Max made its first announcement. Trials began in November, with “a broader rollout” expected in 2025.
However, while Netflix and Disney have taken a relatively light touch to password sharing, HBO Max plans to get “much more aggressive” later this year.
That’s according to Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming chief, Jean-Briac “JB” Perette, who shared the news during the company’s earnings call yesterday.
Starting in September, it’ll actually start to see the messaging, which right now has been a fairly soft, cancelable messaging, start to get more fixed and such that people will have to take action as opposed to right now sort of having a voluntary process..
JB Perette, CEO and President of Global Streaming and Games for Warner Bros. Discovery
That’s not to say that the two other streaming giants haven’t taken a hard line against password sharing. Netflix took the longest to ramp things up, so many subscribers encountered an extended period of “soft messaging” where they were being gently but firmly encouraged to move away from a shared account.
Netflix has reportedly become more strict with those who refuse to take the hint, with some reports of users being locked out and required to go through an account validation process multiple times per day. Sadly, its automated detection systems have also been capturing legitimate users who have frequently-changing dynamic IP addresses or travel more frequently.
Disney remains in its softer stage, but that could also change. Reminders about password sharing don’t come as frequently and don’t seem as intense, based on the reports we’ve seen. It also offers a travel mode where users can temporarily mark themselves as away from home.
If anything, the difference with HBO Max is that it seems to be willing to crank up the enforcement much sooner than its rivals have. “We spent a lot of the last several months making sure that our data sets on figuring out who is a legitimate user and who may not be legitimate user, Perrette said, “and making sure that we test it sufficiently so that when we turn on the more aggressive languaging around what needs to happen that we were actually putting the net in the right place, so to speak.”
The more aggressive messaging will begin next month, with the company hoping to push all the password sharers off into their own accounts by the end of 2025. HBO Max offers an “Extra Member Add-On” for an additional $7.99 monthly fee. Like Disney’s offering, it’s limited to only one extra member per account, regardless of plan. They’re also not available to bundle subscribers. By comparison, Netflix offers up to two extra member accounts for those on its highest-tier Premium plan.
