the market of television streaming It is a chaos, with continuous changes and quota increases. After the tumultuous merger of Warner and Discovery, here we have another change of course. HBO Max it is renamed Maxand points to the netflix strategyWith several plans with and without advertisingand one extra fee about to see 4K contentwhich is the only standard that exists now in televisions…
The rumors surfaced yesterday, but today Warner has confirmed all data. HBO Max will be renamed Max on May 23 in the United States. In Spain it will be in 2024.
Over there Max it will be a different service when you add Discovery. In Spain it does not affect us too much, since discovery It has a lot of reality content, live programming and North American sports that are not very interesting here. And the rest, like the famous documentaries of Discovery Channelthey will surely be integrated into Max.
Don’t call it HBO Max, call it Max
Warner’s new proposal, which has just turned 100, goes far beyond a name change. Copy Netflix model in aspects that harm users.
Today, HBO Max has two plans in the United States: $9.99 a month with advertising, and $15.99 without it. The price has already increased by 1 dollar recently, but as of May 23 it will begin to charge an extra $5 for 4K contentlike Netflix does.
It is curious, and irritating, that for years only 4K TVs are sold in stores, and what today is the only standardstreaming platforms consider it an extra, and they charge you more for it. Since when is standard an extra?
These are the new plans of Max:
- Max Ad-Lite (with ads) ($9.99/mo, $99.99/yr): 2 simultaneous streams, 1080p HD, no downloads, 5.1 surround
- Max Ad Free (no ads) ($15.99/month or $149.99/year): 2 simultaneous streams, 1080p HD, up to 30 offline downloads, 5.1 surround
- Max Ultimate Ad Free ($19.99/month or $199.99/year): 4 simultaneous streams, 4K Ultra HD resolution, 100 online downloads, Dolby Atmos
$20 per month per platformmakes it unfeasible for people to sign up for several. Max clones the Netflix pricing model, but it’s not netflix: its content and its monthly releases are much smaller. You will have to increase the openings quite a bit if you want to justify the price increase.
In SpainWarner has confirmed that Max will arrive in 2024:
Here it continues to cost €8.99 per monthwith a 35% discount if you sign up for a year. Includes 4K content with HDR.
That it is pushed back to 2024 pretty much confirms that advertising plans will also be released. It remains to be seen if there will also be an extra charge for 4K content, and by how much the fee will go up.
HBO Max Has promised “more series, movies and content“, but nothing has been specified. The problem is that people don’t want more content, is saturated with continuous premieres of series and movies. Wants quality contentsomething that goes against the subscription models, which force new things to be released every week, and quantity is prioritized over quality.
UPDATE: Warner just announced that Max will premiere the Serie of Harry Potterwhich we already talked about a few days ago:
The idyll with streaming platforms is over. The brutal increase in quotas in recent years has turned what was a pleasure into a tug of war and a headache to decide which platform do you subscribe to. Users cannot pay 15 or 20 euros a month for each of the 5 or 6 major platforms out there.
HBO Max change name to Maxwith new plans that include quota increase for him 4K content. It will arrive in Spain in 2024.
