By Gavin Boyle
Following the lead of Netflix and Disney+, HBO Max warned subscribers it will ramp up its initiative to crackdown on password sharing next month to make it nearly impossible to do without being caught.
“The message language right now has been a fairly soft, cancel-able message,” Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) Chief of Streaming J.B. Perrette said during a Q2 earnings call. “[Soon it will] start to get more fixed and such that people have to take action as opposed to right now, sort of having to be a voluntary process.”
This means that the streaming service will begin to flag abnormal usage through means such as IP address monitoring, device fingerprinting and usage pattern analytics. Users who caught sharing a subscription will be given the option to add an extra member profile for an additional $7.99 per month or lose access to the platform altogether if the sharing does not stop.
WBD first announced it would implement a password crackdown for HBO Max in the spring, explaining that by the end of 2026, sharing subscriptions for the service would be a thing of the past.
“It’s going to increase and really be a 12- to 18-month initiatives as it rolls out to more subscriber cohorts here in the U.S and globalizes later in the year and into ‘26 and as the messaging on the password sharing gets more assertive over the course of the back half of the year,” Perrette said in May.
Related: Max Ramps Up Password Sharing Crackdown — What to Know
Password crackdowns have become common among streaming services seeking to boost their subscriber numbers. Netflix and Disney+ have both done so in the past and saw subscriber growth in the millions as a result. Though Perrette believes his company’s attempts will be similarly successful, he has warned investors not to expect quite as large of a bump.
“I’m conscious of not over-selling [the password crackdown] because you see Netflix’s success. But Netflix was in market for 17 years. That means people are sharing passwords for 17 years,” he said. “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 relative to the scale of our business, it’s a meaningful opportunity.”
The crackdown also comes as streaming is set to become a much larger focus by the end of the year. WBD will undergo a split into a linear asset focused company – Discovery – and a streaming, studio and parks centered company – Warner Bros. By improving HBO Max’s profitability now, Warner Bros. can have a strong start after decoupling itself from cable and broadcast television.
The HBO Max password crackdown has been in the works for many months now, so it’s no surprise that they will ramp up efforts. Nonetheless, the move will be met with disappointment by many who share a subscription to cut down on their costs.
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