Shannon Nutt

What happened to HBO Max charging for their sports package starting in March? I've never been asked to pay more on my yearly subscription (which is about to renew), but I'm still getting the Sports stuff...did they just roll that into their annual subscriptions or did they decide not to charge more for the Sports stuff/make it part of the normal charges?

Meathead

No... the signup page still says "Sports Add-On on us for a limited time."

lacubs

they didn't sale me everytime i use it the color is off

Deftones

Looks like we we may be getting yet another price increase: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warne...164737068.html

fujishig

A worse service plus a price increase, even!

Jay G.

It's going to become a viscous cycle. Every price hike leads to more cancellations, to they need to raise prices on the remaining customers to make up the difference, which leads to more cancellations...

Shannon Nutt

Max is following the Netflix model.

fujishig

The Netflix model is investing more money then raising prices, not cutting costs then raising prices, though.

WTK

Disney+, Hulu, Max bundle (ad-supported & ad-free) coming this summer
https://press.hulu.com/disney-hulu-max-bundle/
https://press.wbd.com/us/media-relea...ulu-max-bundle

Jay G.

One step at a time, they're recreating cable TV. Although at least this time around, you can choose with ads or without for all the content.

Meathead

Give them time... ad-free will become prohibitively expensive or go away all together.

Noonan

I think this is a good time for me to cancel Max. I still like being able to put on whatever random movie they have playing on a weekend afternoon but not for what it costs and will cost soon. Time to binge Tokyo Vice before I don't have access.

Spiderbite

I'm mad because it is likely true.

Josh-da-man

I suspect "ad free" streaming might eventually go away.

The way I see it, since they can customize the advertising experience to individual users, it's just too tempting not to force on all subscribers. With all of the personal information we leave behind on social media, google searches, and web browsing, there are insanely detailed profiles available out there. It allows advertisers to target individuals. Why bother showing a car commercial to your entire audience, and just go after the people who might be looking for a new car? Why bother advertising beer to people who don't drink?

I would suspect that, in the near future, one streamer will go "ad-lite" instead of "ad free" for their most expensive tiers and the others will follow suit.

fujishig

I think they keep ad-free, and like someone said before just make it more and more expensive so the ad tier is a steal. Then sell all the advertising data you have on the ad free tier to companies anyway.

Alan Smithee

Then I’d just use an adblocker or watch stuff from the high seas. Will NEVER pay and be forced to sit through commercials at the same time, that’s the main reason I never had cable.

DJariya

Max probably has the best overall content with movies and shows. Thats why it’s bringing all this outrage

I get it, money is really tight these days and everything is going up. Streaming is just getting more and more expensive and it sucks. Feels like a knee jerk reaction that SVOD for a lot of these newer streamers isn't a profitable business model. Netflix took what almost 20 years to finally become profitable?

TheBang

Netflix has been net profitable every year since 2003 (its 6th year of business):
https://www.statista.com/statistics/...ix-net-income/

That's why the studios were falling all over themselves trying to replicate Netflix's business model.

Meathead

Good luck on that!

lwhy?

A lot of that profit was from the DVD rental business which allowed them to go into streaming. DVD rental profits helped them fund streaming. They had a ton of debt at one point. They had to take out loans to fund production of Netflix originals.

kefrank

It looks like there is one now. In the app, go to Home or Movies then scroll down until you get to the Discover Our Collections section and there’s an A24 Collection that has all of the A24 films.

It’s really obnoxious that these collections (which used to be called hubs) aren’t accessible from the menu. Even dumber is that the Discover Our Collections row does not show a TCM Collection, but the TCM Collection still exists with it’s own dedicated row if you scroll down far enough on the Movies page. Whoever is in charge of the way this app is organized needs some serious UX/UI training.