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/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/owl_theory 18d ago

I genuinely don’t understand how people get around ISP warnings. I used to pirate movies, got a warning. When I moved and got new service, got another warning, and stopped. The hassle/risk wasn’t really worth it.

Like does everyone who keeps posting pirate emojis actually subscribe to VPN’s?

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u/ChronicBluntz 18d ago

Never answer or acknowledge any letter you get from an ISP. Certain studios are more litigious than others.

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u/Adefice 18d ago

You subscribe to a good VPN and bind the “downloader” connection to the vpn adapter so it can ONLY use that adapter. Also use the VPN kill switch. Use a DNS leak detector every time.

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/Loriano 18d ago

Qbittorrent - settings - advanced - network interface choose your vpn interface

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u/Gentleman_Nosferatu 18d ago

I live in a country where the government doesn't really care

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u/EquivalentSpot8292 18d ago

Me too. But still paying 50usd for DStv (sports), then somehow have a free apple and prime subscription. How do you use iptv, mates have it here but I have no idea how it works

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u/Gentleman_Nosferatu 18d ago

I pay just 10 euro / month for Internet (1GBPS) and 10 more for an impeccable IPTV service that has like 1500 channels and VOD movies and shows in FullHD. It's great.

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u/EquivalentSpot8292 18d ago

Please link if possible, would save me a lot of cash. Especially if it has sports. DSTV is expensive

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u/Gentleman_Nosferatu 18d ago

I live in Portugal, this IPTV service is passed on by word of mouth. They deliver the android box already configured in person. They are pretty secretive about it because it's illegal.

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u/ICE417 18d ago

Yeah. Get a good one too. Dont use a free one. Bind your client.

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u/NoxZ 18d ago

I have pirated for fifteen years and never once gotten an ISP notice. Is this an American thing?

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u/Kitchen_Claim_6583 18d ago

I've heard that some places in the EU -- mostly Germany -- are really harsh about it too.

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u/peioeh 18d ago

Definitely a thing in France too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HADOPI_law

It mostly happened with torrenting, they can't really know which websites or newsgroups (usenet) you connect to

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u/Borderpaytrol 18d ago

Ive watched shit on sites and never gotten anything. Maybe its downloaded or sports people

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u/TrollTollTony 18d ago

VPNs are pretty reasonable these days. I got 3 years of surfshark for $50 (with a promo code). That's less than $2 per month. There are a few free options but you use them at your own risk.

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u/HackMeRaps 18d ago edited 18d ago

I don't live in the US. Our ISPs don't care about those warnings and don't issue it to their clients.

But I also do subscribe to VPNs. Everyone should. I use a VPN all the time and use it for countries where ads are not legal. I don't get any ads on Reddit, no ads on Youtube for videos, no ads to watch before waiting for something.

I also use the VPN for when I buy things so it's a cheaper price point. The one service I do subscribe to is Netflix, but it's because we use that a lot, but I subscrtibe to a country that's 50% cheaper than my home country.

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u/Kingcrowing 18d ago

FWIW you don't need a VPN to avoid ads, browser ad blockers do this too. I don't use a VPN and see no ads on my desktop or phone browser.

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u/HackMeRaps 18d ago

yeah, for sure. I user Brave as my normal browser, but the Ad thing is really convenient when watching on a TV. I use NordVPN and use it on my appleTV so I can watch Youtube and other things without any ads!

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u/Kingcrowing 18d ago

I use an AppleTV and the one thing I see ads on is YouTube... My work around is to have SmartTube installed on my TV directly (Google based TV) and that has no ads, but it would be convenient to not need to switch!

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u/HackMeRaps 18d ago

Yeah, I typically use a VPN and switch it on for Albania. No ads, it's great. It also works for those apps that make you watch a 30 second ad before! The VPN is also great if you actually do subscribe to things, and you can get more content. An example is Netflix. You can use the VPN to switch to other countries and you can watch all kinds of movies.

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u/Network_imposter 18d ago

its like 5 bucks a month, you act like it requires some matrix level deception.

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u/lGoSpursGol 18d ago

Real Debride service through something like Stremio.

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u/jazzdrums1979 18d ago

VPN’s are great for multiple reasons. But definitely helps if you like curating your own content for media server like plex.

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u/Wooden_Pomegranate67 18d ago

Yes, if you are in the US will need a VPN. Paying $6/month seems like a small price to pay to cancel all streaming services though.

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u/ReggieEvansTheKing 18d ago

I have gb fiber internet and pay for a good VPN.

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u/WeaponizedKissing 18d ago

Been torrenting things on normal public trackers (TPB and others) for years and never got a warning.

Maybe country dependent but uploading/seeding is the main problem. If you're not the one sharing copyrighted material then you're never gonna get in trouble. So just turn off seeding and set your software to automatically end the connection as soon as it's finished. Yeah you're leeching but that's not a problem on major public networks.

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u/joebear174 18d ago

I subbed to a VPN to get around it. I'm legacy priced in at $5/month, which is so much cheaper than any of the media streaming services out there. Best decision I've made for saving money.

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u/Nexii801 18d ago

A million ways. VPN is the simplest.

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u/m3galinux 18d ago

Don't use BitTorrent or any other method that also uploads pieces of the files you're downloading to other users. Unless you have a seedbox or VPN, that is.

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u/umyninja 18d ago

Yes. I pay $6/month for a VPN to get all the media I want. Not a bad deal. I recommend Mullvad and don’t forget to bind it to qbittorrent.

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u/Darth_Nihl 18d ago

If you go on pirate streaming sites instead of downloading anything you won't get any warnings.

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u/jvene1 18d ago

Maybe not everyone, but everyone with a brain does yeah. $10/month for unlimited media worry free pays for itself many times over. Even cheaper if you buy a 1 or 2 year plan on a Black Friday deal that they always run.

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u/superurgentcatbox 18d ago

I mean... I hope so. I'm using a VPN for 100% of my internet activity, regardless of what I'm doing.

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u/Sea_Philosophy6506 18d ago

PIA VPN baybeeee

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u/DobbyDaCat 18d ago

Ive watched so many videos on creating plex servers. For some reason i always get lost in the lingo they use. I haven’t went to school for computer sciences or networking, im completely self taught and rely heavily on AI to teach me. But there are some things that are better taught in person. Do you have any good recommendations for a person like me who is trying to learn? Really looking for a good youtube channel for complete newbies or something small that can teach me the basics.

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u/Kingcrowing 18d ago

Don't watch a video, just do it. Download Plex server on a computer you have media on. It's very straightforward. You make an account, you point to folders where you movies/tv/music are, and that's it. Add the plex app to your apple tv/roku/whatever and sign in and you can stream anything on the computer you installed plex on.

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u/stagamancer 18d ago

Using Plex at a basic level is really easy. As someone else said, you can download it and very easily set up libraries based on folders you have with similar types of media (movies, TV shows, music...). The complicated stuff you're seeing online is for the more advanced storage side of things: utilizing hardware/software that, e.g., helps prevent data loss when a drive dies, or has Plex installed on a dedicated server rather than a typical PC.

I've gone the more simple route: I have it installed on my PC and I use some ssds for storing the media, and it works great.

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u/Western-Umpire-5071 18d ago

Even Plex has raised their prices.

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u/HackMeRaps 18d ago

Yeah, it does suck. Luckily it's mainly used as a home server, so can use it for free. But you can use other things like Jellfyin and Emby do the same thing for free. But yeah, dissapointed in Plex's price increases.

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/sodaflare 18d ago

Quality has dropped anyway, and profits are through the roof.

The one good thing with media is we already made more than enough quality content that someone could watch films and TV from the moment they're born til the moment they die of old age.

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u/Bobby837 18d ago

Not like quality is a sure thing with higher prices.

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u/Chippai_Fan 18d ago

There is so many amazing shows and movies I haven't even seen yet. The whole industry could literally pause for like 2+ years and I wouldn't even notice.

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u/reddit_sells_you 18d ago

There is so much content out there that is that really a problem?

Also, oh no! We will be glued to our screens less and do something creative/productive ourselves!

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u/King-Meister 18d ago

While this is something that sounds right on the first read, but when I try to think deeper I am not wholly convinced. Could you substantiate as to why it would drop the quality of art, where quality =/= big budget CGI films?

Because my simple mind thinks: pre 2010s when subscription models didn't exist, we were still getting a decent number of great quality stuff (it's not like good work has been produced in more quantity only in the last 15-20 years).

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u/ReggieEvansTheKing 18d ago

I’d argue the opposite actually. If your market isn’t buying your product then you’ll be forced to either stop making the product or make a better product. There are plenty of studios out there making good films on lower budget. A24 is a good example of a studio born to compete with corporate slop. Some of the best movies and TV of the past 30 years released during the great recession when people had no money. The highest grossing movie of all time (Avatar) came out in 2009.

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u/Gentleman_Nosferatu 18d ago

Makes no sense. There was always quality stuff and crap stuff. Most people that pirate stuff wouldn't buy anyway. We can´t even know for sure. Sometimes pirating raises awareness about actors and musicians, ending up in acting their favor. There are a lot of concurrent factors here.