HBO Max is going to get even more annoying about password sharing

HBO Max’s password-sharing crackdown is about to get stricter. During an earnings call on Thursday, Warner Bros. Discovery streaming head JB Perette said prompts surrounding account sharing will become more persistent starting next month, pushing people toward paying an extra $7.99 per month to add an extra member to their account. “In September, you’ll actually start to see the messaging — which right now has been a fairly soft, cancelable messaging — start to get more fixed and such that people have to take action,” Perette said, adding that right now, paid sharing is “a voluntary process.” Following password-sharing crackdowns at Netflix and Disney Plus, Warner Bros. Discovery announced its own plan to introduce paid sharing last year. So far, HBO Max has introduced “soft messaging” surrounding the change, but it hasn’t begun to strictly enforce the policy. The streamer added 3.4 million subscribers in the months following its debrand from Max to HBO Max, and it will begin driving paid sharing “in a much more aggressive fashion” later this year, according to Perette. HBO Max currently uses account information, IP addresses, device IDs, and user activity to determine if someone is sharing their account with a person outside their household. Warner Bros. Discovery execs expect paid sharing to boost subscriber growth, which Netflix reported following its clampdown. But as subscription fatigue continues to grow, making people pay to share their passwords might not go over smoothly with subscribers.