Max Will Start Cracking Down on Password Sharing Soon

Max is preparing to crack down on password sharing. This will be a long process that may take a few years to fully roll out.

During Warner Bros. Discovery’s Q3 earnings call, Max's Chief Financial Officer, Gunnar Wiedenfels, characterized password sharing as “a form of price rises.” He argued that it's fair to ask users who are not paying subscribers or sharing accounts with multiple households to contribute more. This is not the first time Max has spoken about password sharing.

In March, the company's head of global streaming and games, JB Perrette, announced that a crackdown would begin "later this year and into '25." Now, the company plans to implement the change gradually, starting with "very soft messaging" in the coming months. This will be followed by more significant steps in 2025 and 2026, but the company wasn't clear on what they'd do in the next few years.

Wiedenfels has not ruled out the possibility of a price increase for Max in the future. He believes that the premium nature of the service gives "a fair amount of room to continue to push a price." However, the last price increase for Max's ad-free plans happened in June, so it will likely be a few more months until another happens. During the third quarter, the platform added 7.2 million subscribers, bringing its total to 110.5 million globally.

Max is a huge positive when compared to the company's other divisions like games and movies. Recently, Warner Bros. released Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, whose sales have been "disappointing," and Joker: Folie à Deux, which will likely lose the company $150 million. So, potentially losing money because people are sharing passwords on Max would likely be a significant issue for Warner Bros.

The rollout of Max's password sharing crackdown appears to be following a similar path as Disney+. Disney began sending emails to customers about paid sharing months before introducing its "extra member" option. Last year, Netflix also started pushing people who shared passwords to pay more or move people to separate accounts.

There's still a lot in the air as to how this will be done and whether a price increase will come with it. Warner Bros. has been talking about this for some time and will likely do what it takes to make sure they're getting every bit of profit they feel they deserve.

Source: The Verge