Max's password sharing crackdown is about to start

Sorry, folks: You won't be able to share your Max login credentials much longer.

The Warner Bros. Discovery-owned streaming service announced it would start cracking down on accounts that are sharing their password back in March, but not much has really happened so far.

In the company's third quarter 2024 earnings call on Thursday, JB Perrett, CEO and president of global streaming and games for Warner Bros., said Max will start with "very soft messaging" around password sharing later this year.

"As we kick into '25 and into '26 you'll see more and more progress on that, which in effect is a form of a price rise as well, obviously asking members who have not signed up or multi-household members to pay a little bit more," he said. "And so you're going to see that as an additional kicker."

This probably means users can expect emails warning them about password sharing, followed by offers to start paying for extra members.

The company previously said it would fully roll out paid sharing in 2025.

There's potentially worse news, too. According to Perett, Max might also increase the prices of its streaming service as it deems there is a "fair amount of room" for higher prices due to the service's "premium nature."

"We think the premium nature of our product in particular lends us to have a fair amount of room to continue to push price," he said. "We've been judicious about it, but every price rise we've done so far the churn has actually been lower than we projected and expected and the retention continues to be strong."

The company increased the prices for its streaming service twice this year, most recently in June.

Max's move to curb password sharing is hardly surprising given that Netflix saw a big subscriber increase after it put an end to password sharing on its streaming service.