Warner Bros. Exec Says Plans for Max Password-Sharing Crackdown Are Really Just Another Price Hike

Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max platform is planning a password-sharing crackdown like Netflix and Disney+. It’s been honing in on this move for a while, but on Thursday, the media conglomerate’s execs shared when they will unveil their latest money-making scheme. Oh, in case you’re wondering, I’m not the one claiming this is just a veiled price hike. That’s the Warner Bros. execs themselves.

Warner Bros. Discovery announced these plans during its investor earnings call for its third-quarter results. WB’s president of global streamer and games, JB Perrette, first mentioned to investors the company’s plan for a password-sharing crackdown. Later, during the call, chief financial officer Gunnar Wiedenfels said the media monolith plans to unveil “some very soft messaging” to lock down accounts at the tail end of 2024. The idea is to limit people’s ability to share passwords through 2025 and into 2026.

Other companies like Disney and Netflix were very careful about messaging regarding their respective limits on sharing accounts. However, Wiedenfels made it explicit that the reason for this move was to simply make more money on the backs of consumers. He said the end of password sharing is “in effect… a form of a price rise as well as asking members who have not signed up or multi-household members to pay a little bit more.”

The executive excitedly talked about how this plan would be a “kicker” to boost revenues.

In June, Max hiked the price of its ad-free tier by $1 to $17 a month, or $20 extra per year up to $170. The Ultimate ad-free tier, which allows more devices to watch content at once and downloads for offline viewing, also jumped to $31, or $210 a year. The price increase was just the latest in a long line of price hikes across streaming.

It seems Max’s latest money-making plan is to start sending emails to customers notifying them about the upcoming crackdown before it eventually pulls the trigger. While we don’t know exactly how WBD will restrict accounts, it could follow Disney’s example and offer restricted “extra member” accounts for upwards of $7 more a month on top of what you’re already paying. Netflix subscribers on Standard or Premium plans can pay $8 more monthly for shared access outside the household.

The plans come just as Warner Bros. was extolling increases in subscribers across both Max and Discovery+, from 103.3 million in June to 110.5 million. The company says the Paris Summer Olympics helped bring in new watchers. That doesn’t mean those subscribers will stick around. CEO David Zaslav, who received a 25% raise to his already enormous salary this year, said he felt the company’s assets were “undervalued” and that making real money meant reducing expenses. At the same time, he promoted Max’s subscriber growth, “driving increased revenue and profitability.”

Zaslav also mentioned his company was looking for more “consistency” in its content, especially considering his disappointment with the returns on Joker: Folie à Deux.

Now that Warner Bros. Discovery is saying the quiet part out loud, can’t we all stop for a second and consider the impact of these vampiric, anti-consumer practices? A recent report from Deloitte suggested households in the U.S. are paying more than $61 a month for multiple streaming services, a 27% increase from 2023, thanks to segmented viewing experiences and price hikes. That report dropped even before Max’s and Disney+’s latest cost increases. All this just to put a smile on shareholders’ grim faces.