Max could be next streaming service to crack down on password sharing

(NEXSTAR) — First, it was Netflix, then it was Disney+ and Hulu. Now, it looks like yet another streaming service is gearing up to crack down on account sharing.

Max, previously HBO Max, will be cracking down on password sharing “starting later this year,” Jean-Briac Perrette, the company’s president and CEO of global streaming said Monday at a Morgan Stanley technology conference in San Francisco.

Perrette declined to estimate how much money the company expected the crackdown to generate, the Associated Press reports.

Max already says in its terms of use that it can “modify access or disable features, including for security reasons, to limit the impact of account sharing outside of your household or where we have concluded in our discretion that there has been a misuse of your Max Account.” A spokesperson for the company didn’t immediately respond to Nexstar’s request for comment last month, but IndieWire reported in December, citing a source, that Max could begin cracking down on password sharing this year.

Netflix made waves last year when it started restricting password sharing — using someone else’s account to watch content rather than paying for your own — and pushing users to either create sub-accounts or for moochers to start their own. The streaming giant knew it wouldn’t be a well-loved move, telling shareholders in April that it expected “a bit of a cancel reaction.” 

Netflix’s decision to abandon its long-established practice of allowing account sharing with members outside the household appears to have paid off, though. In the months after the move, Netflix reported subscriber gains that surpassed projections. Subscriber growth has continued, despite the crackdown and yet another subscription price hike.

Disney announced last summer that it would begin its own password-sharing crackdown at the start of 2024, with CEO Bob Iger calling it a move to “drive monetization.” That announcement came after Disney+ saw a second consecutive quarter of subscriber drop-off. 

The company has since followed through on that promise, warning subscribers of its platforms — Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ — in January that it was updating the subscriber agreement and imposing “limitations on sharing your account outside of your household.” Those changes were effective as of January 25 for new subscribers and will kick in for current subscribers come March 14. 

Other major streaming services, like NBC’s Peacock, CBS’s Paramount+, and Amazon’s Prime Video, don’t currently have restrictions on account sharing. But that doesn’t mean changes are impossible.

Netflix once called love “sharing a password,” and former CEO Reed Hastings described it as “something you have to learn to live with.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.