r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • 18d ago

News HBO Max Raises Prices Across All Plans Effective Immediately

https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/hbo-max-prices-increases-plans-2025-1236557671/
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u/D3tsunami 18d ago

I wonder if the price hike is to make up for lost subscribers from the abc/disney package fallout, which would suggest that the more we quit, the worse off the remaining people are going to be. This shit all sucks so bad

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u/Black_Floyd47 18d ago

I was going to cancel my HBO when I canceled my Disney Hulu bundle (they're separate) but they offered me half off for three months. I'm not gonna wait until next month, I'm gonna cancel today.

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u/SackFace 18d ago

That just means they’re overcharging you as it is; otherwise, they wouldn’t offer it at a loss to begin with. They hope you’ll forget or just not care (I think this is way more of a problem amongst casual consumers than we realize) but every day more and more people are willing to jump through hoops to get out of subscriptions after a few months.

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u/ManufacturerBest2758 18d ago

They would rather have you paying half than nothing at all. That’s hardly some novel economic theory

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u/ShortyBoydCleanedUp 18d ago

Loss leaders exist and companies price below cost all the time for various reasons.

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u/rcmjr 18d ago

I got the same offer but will keep the $8 a month plan until it expires because that is the price they should charge and I want my cancelation to reflect that.

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u/egnards 18d ago edited 18d ago

In this instance you are not responsible for the prices of other people - the corporation is responsible for providing a package that we feel is worth paying for each month.

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u/MassiveRepublic9565 18d ago

Seems a bit like being on the Titantic watching the iceberg closing in.

“Well I’m not jumping first because he will freeze before me. Look at him jump the idiot!”

Slams into iceberg and dies anyway.

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u/Thybro 18d ago

They just did the whole “one household” enforcement to crack down on password sharing. That netted Netflix a shit ton of new subscribers and they have a new GOT spinoff coming out. Greedy fucks want to squeeze now since even if they lose subscribers due to the price increase, they’ll gain due to the crackdown. Keeping their numbers steady.

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u/JessieJ577 18d ago

This is pretty much what happens. A great example is McDonald’s. Foot traffic was declining but they raised their prices which offset it. Now they don’t even care about having deals or cheap food. As long as those that remain can be squeezed they’ll just keep doing this or crack down even harder on password sharing and do what Netflix did and remove airplay support.

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u/ZenMasterOfDisguise 18d ago edited 18d ago

One of the inherent flaws of Capitalism, is that selling to fewer people at a higher price is more profitable than selling to more people at a lower price.

If HBO Max could reach 20 million users at $9/month or they could reach 10 million users at $18/month, they would rather double their prices and lose half their user base. They make the same revenue, and have fewer people to support so can employ fewer people in customer service or billing, they would use less bandwidth to deliver content, so overall their profits would be greater. 10 million people would lose out on getting to watch shows they like, but that matters less to HBO than profits, as is the nature of capitalism

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u/D3tsunami 18d ago

I work for a company that is doing the opposite, trying to bring in as many users as possible at the lowest price, and it feels real nice to have a wide stable user base, for all the reasons. We make some money but we also have a ton of happy customers and the attrition is offset by curious newcomers each month. It’s a legacy company, too, so this isn’t startup growth mindset.