Bad news, streamers: a Warner Bros. Discovery exec just claimed that Max's password-sharing crackdown campaign is due to begin in a matter of days.
Max first confirmed it would be joining Disney Plus and Netflix in the password crackdown business back in March 2024, and now WBD's CEO and President of Global Streaming and Games, JB Perrette, has stated that Max (h/t The Wrap) will begin warning subscribers about the crackdown next week.
"We'll kick off literally in about a week, [with] some very early, gentle messaging", Perrette said at a conference on Tuesday. "We'll start some early messaging to people who we think are definitely in the higher tier of usage".
If you've still been borrowing a friend or relative's account to watch some of the best Max shows, you might have to start planning to include another streamer in your budget soon.
How will the Max password sharing crackdown work?
Earlier in the year, we heard that Max's password-sharing solution would be similar to Netflix and other streamers who've clamped down on account sharing, and, per Perrette's comments, it seems unlikely that Max's change will indeed look very similar to Netflix's "Extra Member" accounts or the recent Disney Plus's password-sharing solution.
Perrette has said that Max will be offering a way to "essentially add a member" to your plan in the first quarter of 2025. It sounds like the change will be gradual, though, as the streamer figures out which users are genuinely sharing accounts or are just using their Max membership in another location temporarily.
"We will then start, gradually as we get the data... figuring out, with some explicit and implicit signals... how good we are at detecting", Perrette adds. "Then as we go through '25, you're going to see the filters get tighter and tighter. We think that's a meaningful growth driver, likely more as it... begins to kick in in the back half of '25 and into '26".
There's no word on pricing for these additional Max member accounts, but to make the system worthwhile, adding another user to your Max plan will presumably be cheaper than paying for two separate plans entirely. It's also not entirely clear how this crackdown will affect Discovery Plus users, at the time of writing, but we'll be sure to keep an eye out for any updates as they come.
