Max Plans to Crack Down on Password Sharing

If you use your ex’s Max password to watch the current season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, beware: You might need to get your house (of the dragon) in order soon.

The corporate masters behind Max, AKA Warner Bros. Discovery, say they are planning to crack down on the sharing of Max passwords in 2024.

At a Morgan Stanley conference, WBD president of global streaming and games J.B. Perrette said (via The Hollywood Reporter), “We’re going to be doing that starting later this year and into [2025], which is another growth opportunity for us.”

Max

Perrette noted that Netflix has had financial success recently by forcing customers who were freeloading off their friends and loved ones’ passwords to either sign up at a reduced price or stop watching entirely. But he also noted that “Netflix was in market for 17 years. That means people were sharing passwords for 17 years. We’ve been in the market for four, if you count the HBO Max launch, and obviously we’re not quite at the same scale. But we think, relative to the scale of our business, it’s a meaningful opportunity.”

Disney+ has also recently begun cracking down on password sharing among its users, and even amended its user agreement to include language stating they have the right to “terminate” your account if you give your password to someone outside your household.

Certainly, these services have the right to enforce their rules, and to make sure the people watching their service are paying for it. But they may be overestimating people’s willingness to pony up for so many of these services. At a certain point, the costs become overwhelming — more than cable would be for a similar amount of options. And the way these services are adding commercials, you don’t even get an ad-free experience on streaming in many cases. So you’re paying more for less. That might boomerang back on some of those streamers before they know it.

In the fourth quarter of 2023, Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming division posted a $217 million loss.