The days of sharing your Max account with friends and family are drawing to a close. During a Q3 earnings call on Thursday, Warner Bros. Discovery CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels confirmed that Max will start its password-sharing crackdown in the coming months with “very soft messaging” to customers before ramping up the process in 2025 and 2026.
As The Verge reports, Wiedenfels called the crackdown “a form of price rises,” referring to the fact that the Max streaming service will finally be “asking members who have not signed up, or multi-household members to pay a little bit more.”
Wiedenfels didn’t share specifics, but his comments suggest that the rollout will look somewhat similar to that of Netflix. Those who are currently using a Max account that originates outside of their homes will seemingly be given the option to either sign up for a membership themselves or have the owner of the account pay extra for them to keep watching.
We’ve known about this impending crackdown for quite some time. Back in May, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav made it clear that Max planned to start cracking down on password sharing before the end of the year, and now we know that’s still the plan.
Additionally, Wiedenfels said during the Thursday call that WBD has yet to rule out another price hike for Max. According to the CFO, the “premium nature” of the service leaves ” a fair amount of room to continue to push a price we’ve been judicious about.”
