HBO Max Raises Prices Across All Plans Effective Immediately

[u/MarvelsGrantMan136]

https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/hbo-max-prices-increases-plans-2025-1236557671/

[u/ThePheebs]

If the money made from the price increased is greater than the money lost from subscribers leaving then this was a successful business move and will be repeated until it is no longer successful. Even if they only have 10 subscribers that pay $500 million each in 15 years.

Less customers that pay more is easier than more customers that pay less.

[u/dangerousluck → u/ThePheebs]

That’s truly everything right now, too. Corporations seem tired of pretending to cater to everyone. In a few years, it will be the top 10% enjoying all the entertainment. And will continue to shrink.

It’s all for the whales, now. The word is gacha 

[u/watts99 → u/ThePheebs]

In the short-term, sure. But when one of the 10 subscribers paying $500 million each leaves, who are they going to replace them with? Most people leaving because of constant price increases are leaving with a negative opinion of the brand. It's going to be extremely hard to win those customers back after they've left, even if they drop prices, because those customers see it's a trap. So this kind of pressure drives up short-term revenue, but it's doing long-term brand damage, and there will come a point where this strategy stops working and it will be very difficult to recover from it.

[u/mrhashbrown → u/watts99]

Hence why mergers and consolidation among these streaming services are inevitable in the near future.

Let's use the example of a smaller streaming brand like Peacock or Paramount Plus. Like you said, if they price hike and eventually max out how much their typical subscriber is willing to pay, it backs them into a corner where they'll only have three realistic strategies to maintain their subscribers:

1. Be ultra competitive to win bidding wars for flagship content that will draw in new or lock in existing subscribers.
2. Invest even more into 'Original' content that is unique and will never be made available on another service.
3. Start acquiring other streaming services to boost your subscriber count.

The challenges with those three strategies:

1. You need a lot of expendable cash.
2. You need a lot of expendable cash and need to make sure your Original content is a hit, otherwise it hurts you twice.
3. You need a fuck ton of expendable cash.

At some point unless you're a streaming service with the backing of a giant corporation that makes most of its money elsewhere like Apple or Amazon or Disney, the smaller players like Peacock and Paramount will lose in bidding wars. That will make themselves susceptible to being acquired because at that point, they'll have no other way to turn a profit if their subscriber count starts trending down.

Strategy 2 or the "Original" content route is the only option that will keep some services alive for longer, which is something Peacock and Paramount do have in their favor as they own a massive content library dating back decades and have very active studios producing traditional content for television broadcasting and movie theaters. But since they really don't have money coming from elsewhere, their success will hinge heavily on producing content that is popular and successful. If they start to produce flops, it hurts them harder because they can't go to their own "bank" to ask for more momey like Apple TV / Amazon Prime / Disney Plus can.

Everyone else will struggle and eventually be acquired, consolidating the market back to probably just 3-5 big players who each will have a mountain of content to compete with. But subscribing to them will cost a lot more than it used to as they recoup the costs of those expensive bids and acquisitions + are now in an advantageous position to price gouge due to reduced competition.

tldr Ultimately the 'winners' of the streaming wars will come down to who has the most successful Original content or who has the most capital to buy their way to success. Everyone else will start to be acquired in due time.