HBO Max Shrinkflation: Removing features from my plan, with no reduction in price

Yarr harr fiddle dee dee
- I’ve definitely made a return to dark waters.
  
  Can't say I ever left.
  
  Now there's a show that needs a revival.

Hilarious that these subscription companies learned nothing from the cable industry that they’re disrupting
- I swear I've seen every single company from Netflix to Disney to Spotify to Youtube to Apple doing the same sort of thing in like the past 3 months. This is GROSS.
  
  I can’t wait for their suprised pikachu faces when they put so much friction into using their products that piracy starts eating into their profits. Us nerds are already fed up, and when that happens piracy alternatives grow. That makes it that much easier for the general public to also sail the high seas. I give it 3 years or so before they’re all shocked and crying to congress about the problem they created
  
  I’m ok with YouTube. I pay for a large music service and get no YouTube ads.
  Every other service has only made things worse. Netflix has done the least by not yet pushing ads.
- A lot of these streaming companies are just cable companies who needed to change their business to keep up, but don't want to change their predatory practices
- They are the same companies. Lol they are all owned by isps for the most part.

I canceled my subscription right after I got that email. I don’t use it enough anyway. I’ll just sail the high seas if a new show that I want to watch ends up there.
- That's what happened to me too. I got that email and was like "oh shit, I'm paying $16 for HBO and I can't even get 4k?" Cancelled.
  
  Oh shit I didn't know that last part.
  That was an easy cancel.
  
  Right? Who'd want to pay 16USD a month for DVD quality video? You'd get more value digging out of the Blu-ray Bargain Bin once a week.

What a weird way to thank someone
- It’s more like “thanks and goodbye“ and maybe a little bit of “don’t you dare show your face around these parts if you know what’s good for you” sprinkled in for good measure.

I really don’t want to have to go back to torrenting, but it seems that’s the only option if they keep pushing like this. I’m a camera operator, I work in the industry, my livelihood depends on movies being made. But racketeering the viewers is not how you’ll sustain an industry. Sure it’ll raise your quarterly report but it will damage your business deeply. Producers are cutting themselves a slice bigger every day, both from the viewers and the workers (look at the writers and actors strikes). We can’t make art in a system dictated by instant guaranteed returns and viewers aren’t stupid enough to pay hundreds of dollars to watch the same low effort shit over and over. The film industry NEEDS TO CHANGE!!!!!!!!!!!!
- The film industry NEEDS TO CHANGE
  Agree, and I'd add that it's not just the film industry. It's mostly the same shit all throughout entertainment industry as a whole. Take video games for example - each year there are assumingly AAA titles coming out half cooked at release and yet they cost more than they ever have. Thank you very much, I'd much rather just wait a year for you to fix all those bugs and I'll buy the game at 80% off if it's any good.
  
  I blame it on investors quarterly reports. Movies and games take years to make. For a movie is usually 1-2years pre production 2-4 months filming 1-3 years post production. So you will see a net loss for all this time. Same with games. It’s years in the making but they want quarterly returns not possible.
- I also work in the industry, light tech, and I went back to torrenting like a year ago. Feel pretty good about it. I actually had a paramount plus subscription that I cancelled after working on a paramount show. Fuck those guys.

Don't worry, I'm sure they'll increase the price to make up for it.
- That's what all the others are doing
- Hahaha so true

I solved it by cancelling and getting a raspberry pi, installing Plex media server, and just pirating the movies and shows I wanna watch
- I did the same thing but went with LibreELEC+Kodi. And it even works with the TV remote.
  
  Why’d you choose that over the pi+plex?
- Just curious is a raspberry pi powerful enough for streaming on multiple devices in 4k? Thinking of doing a setup and sharing with my family and friends. I anyway have a pi available
  
  Yes, but only via direct play, it’s not going to be doing any transcoding at all watchable level.
  
  I host anywhere from 1-6 streams at a time on a custom built server.. I'd doubt you're going to get what you're asking without a much bigger build. It doesn't take a crazy build for plex but if you ever need transcoding the pi can't do it. My most recent iteration was $1300 but the price was mostly storage.
  
  It'll only work if you can direct play everything and depending on your ISP upload speed, you may need to transcode any remote streams in which case a Pi will probably burst into flames. A comparable option would be a micro form factor office PC like an Optiplex with a recent gen Intel processor. The iGPU in these works great for transcoding.
  If you want something more serious you can do a custom built PC with a Fractal Design case (Define 5, 6, 7 or Node series) which are made to hold a ton of 3.5" drives. Again here all you really need is a newer Intel CPU and SATA ports (and/or an LSI SAS card).
  
  From my understanding pi doesn't have the greatest hardware for streaming so I wouldn't trust it for multiple devices at 4k.

"New Features" ah yes. Actually it's an upgrade to a new features plan. They are doing you a favor. The new plan is completely free and you even gain streams from other platforms, also free. Yarr!!!

This totally sucks, though I have to say I am impressed that they spelled it out so clearly. I can't believe they showed it to you like that instead of burying it in some legalese/fine print, across multiple emails or something

So glad I built a PLEX server.
- Have a look at Jellyfin, if you haven't. I moved from Plex because of restrictions in HW decoding.
  
  Do you mean hardware encoding, because that's what's paywalled in Plex.
  I personally migrated from a Jellyfin ecosystem to a Plex with Lifetime Pass one when building my current server - while both are highly capable media servers, Plex has, by far, the better clients.
  
  I moved over to Jellyfin because to pay for Plex Premium just to be able to stream my own videos was too much.
  
  Jellyfin never worked great for me on my older tablet and chromecast. Always struggled with either unsupported codecs or just buffering to hell. My plex server is also on somewhat limited hardware and jellyfin could never transcode fast enough, where plex has no issue.
- Same. It's been a much more satisfying investment and has made streaming the content I actually want infinitely easier.
- I'm very glad to have been using Plex/Jellyfin for years, since before HBO Max and Disney+ etc were even a thing. It really is a much better experience.
- Been managing one since about 2014 and increasing/updating... it's immensely refreshing never dealing with these companies' garbage "updates."

🏴‍☠️

The en-shittification saga continues. 💩

What innovation! Digital shrinkflation! Otherwise known as a scam.
- Hey now, that extra bandwidth for downloading 4k content is really expensive, same goes for buying a third device to stream it on -- HBO is really doing OP a favour here by saving them money
  
  imagine if any tech company sold a service at a price that's at least the cost to provide it, that would be outrageous

Time to pick up a DVD player and look around for some movies for sale.

They alerted the deal. Pray that they don't alter it any further
- alerted
  "you're too good of a deal, change or else"
  
  The ability to spell a word is insignificant next to the power of the Force.

Way to go to fight against piracy 🤡

Interesting customer retention move for a service that hasn't been able to make much new content for the past six months and is about to see its new releases dry up.

Yarrrr, sail the seven seas with the rest of us!

Total bullshit

"Thank you for being loyal, here's how we are going to fuck you over"

Don't forget the whole point of the rebrand was to sell off the actual HBO content and fill Max with shitty reality TV. It's the exact same thing only they don't send you an email about it.
- Shit. I saw a few shows that were on HBO Max elsewhere (Netflix?) recently and was like ??? but yeah, that makes sense. When Westworld left, I took it as a one-off but I guess not.

This is not shrinkflation. This is fleecing.
Shrinkflation is a scheme that takes subtlety to pull off. There's some level of artistry involved in increasing prices in a way that is unnoticed by the customer.
This is so unsubtle it doesn't even deserve to be called shrinkflation.

I left when they added all the discovery+ stuff. So much trash/clutter was included with that.

Canceled today after I got this email. Let em burn

"New Features"

I get mine free through ATT. Got the same email today.
Addition: Guess I shouldn't complain too much since it's free anyway
- My understanding is that it is built into the price of the tier. I wonder if it could be argued that they are in breach of contract since it is included in the agreement when signing up.

Guess I'll just be streaming shit online or coughing up a few dollars for rentals

What's that? Are those sea shanties I hear being sung over the horizon?

When they dumped all of that discovery network garbage on there I knew my days with the service were numbered. When they canceled winning time (the one show they had left worth watching imo) and ended it with the Lakers losing, I knew it was time to leave.
- Ever consider not dropping a spoiler for a show you particularly like in a random comment like this? I haven't been able to finish the season yet.
  
  A spoiler? Dude, it's covering things that actually happened.
  They just stopped making it abruptly because HBO are assholes and I wouldn't recommend wasting the rest of your time unless you like watching unfinished stories that are concluded by blocks of text like a fucking Wikipedia article.
  The plot follows actual events very closely.
  I suspect if they had known they were getting the axe they wouldn't have spent nearly the whole season detailing the year they did.

Just out of curiosity: whathave they removed from your plan?
L.E. I didn't see the obvious, sorry!
- 4k streaming, now I can only stream HD, and dolby audio support, and reduced from 3 streaming devices to 2.
  
  Ma'bad didn't see the obvious. :)
- It's in the screenshot
  
  This is one in the series: "When you see it, you'll shit bricks". Kind of obvious... thx