Max will begin its password-sharing crackdown “in about a week,” according to WBD executive JB Perrette. However, policy enforcement won’t begin until 2025, and customers who wish to share their account may continue to do so with a paid add-on.
The Max account-sharing crackdown was first announced at an earnings call in November. And, for better or worse, most of the details from that earnings call remain true. Customers will be warned of the new policy before enforcement begins a few months later, and Max will launch an add-on that re-enables account sharing for customers who pay extra. Gunnar Wiedenfels, Max’s CFO, describes the anti-account sharing policy as an oblique price hike. Max is turning account sharing into a paid feature, just like Netflix did in 2023.
We expected the crackdown to begin in 2025, but WBD’s JB Perrette now says that Max will send out a policy notice to select customers before we enter the New Year. “High tier” offenders will be the target of this first round of warnings, as Max is still fine-tuning its detection systems and doesn’t want to scare legitimate customers who could be mistaken for account-sharing freeloaders, such as frequent travelers, single-household families with several mobile devices, customers who own vacation homes, and so on.
Naturally, the slow crackdown will be accompanied by a spate of highly-anticipated releases, including the second season of “The Last of Us.” These releases may convince angry customers to stick around, or they may bring in new customers who previously accessed Max through a shared account. In any case, executives at Warner Bros. Discovery believe that the crackdown will be a “meaningful growth driver on subs and on revenue.”
Streaming services used to encourage password sharing. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings once told investors that shared accounts were not a threat to the streaming business model. In fact, he suggested that the practice contributed to streaming’s success.
Unfortunately, Netflix had a change of heart after it lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022. Customers and journalists attributed this loss to rising prices, controversial TV show cancelations, and post-COVID streaming fatigue, but Netflix pinned the blame on “the large number of households sharing accounts.” It began cracking down on shared accounts later that year. The risky gamble turned out to be a huge profit driver, so competitors like Disney+ and Max are copying Netflix’s playbook.
This anti-sharing phenomenon isn’t exclusive to Netflix, or Disney+, or Max. It’s the future of streaming. If you gave up on cable television because it was too expensive, restrictive, or ad-filled, well, that’s too bad.
Source: WBD via The Wrap
