
HBO Max drops Linux support in all browsers? - maple3142
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/i5tfft/hbo_max_drops_linux_support_in_all_browsers/
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noodlesUK
What’s funny is that I’m certain that the vast majority of Linux users who
were paying for this were trying really hard to watch these shows
legitimately, and almost all of them will be antagonised by this and just
download torrents or similar.

~~~
alexfromapex
What’s also funny is that if they just use the right abstraction layers
developing for Linux shouldn’t be much more effort than for Mac

~~~
user5994461
Mac is one platform. Linux is tens of different operating systems.

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sleavey
If only there were some kind of platform agnostic hypertext language that
could be used here so that vendors didn't need to care about the details of
the user's operating system.

/s

~~~
user5994461
I can hardly get web developers to test on another browser than Chrome, I
can't imagine what it will take to get them to test on another OS.

~~~
noodlesUK
If none of the web devs at a big company like HBO use Linux as their daily
driver (at least at home), I’d be very surprised...

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mlthoughts2018
The HBO Max saga is really tiresome. They really want you to think of Amazon
and Roku as the bad guys, but they really, really aren’t.

HBO threw so many loyal customers under the bus by not having Prime Video
channels or Roku devices as supported options at launch.

If you have been a loyal, full paying customer of HBO via Prime for years,
suddenly you’re a second class customer paying the same price as Max, but
without access to the expanded content. Even if you were willing to migrate
that engagement to HBO’s preferred Max app, if you happen to have set up your
home to rely on Roku devices, you are out of luck. It’s crazy town.

Apparently HBO expects customers to just wholesale switch their preferred home
device setup that is working well for use of Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu,
Disney+, ESPN, Showtime, etc. etc. just for the Max app. Crazy.

I really hope the pressure ratchets up on them as nobody moves to Max as the
early numbers have shown.

HBO is a channel. It is not a competitor of Netflix or Hulu, and its whole
value proposition of producing significantly higher quality original content
rests on this. It should _want to_ be a channel and not a platform.

The whole strategy is rotten, and the tactical execution of Max is something
really HBO should be ashamed of. What a way to damage customer loyalty.

~~~
kgraves
Just get a device that supports HBO Max?

I’m pissed they don’t support OS/2 but I can view HBO Max on my iPad instead.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
It’s deeply unrealistic to expect customers to change their viewing habits and
buy new devices for this. People rely on the supported devices to stay stable
over time because they may set up larger aspects of their home entertainment
systems to rely on one device in a way that’s not cheap or easy to switch.

People using Roku devices to watch HBO on a large television are not going to
switch to a tablet or phone. Many of those people don’t have a smart TV with
built in apps, nor any interest to pay the price for a video game system like
PS4, nor the ability to switch everything to Apple TV (which frankly doesn’t
work as well as Amazon Fire or Roku, just my opinion). And the costs for new
devices are totally not justifiable if the only reason is one minor streaming
app. Everything _but_ HBO Max works great on my Roku - that sounds like an HBO
problem.

“Just get another device” absolutely is not a feasible solution for most
customers affected by this. As the numbers have shown, the vast majority of
HBO’s ~36 million subscribers are not moving to Max, and are more likely to
switch back to HBO on a linear cable subscription than switch platforms just
for one minor app. If a few people were complaining, it would be their problem
to deal with the device change. If 33 million people are complaining and
ignoring HBO Max, it’s HBO’s problem.

To boot, even if today the issue is with HBO Max not supporting Amazon Prime
Video channels or Roku, they are just teaching customers to be wary - tomorrow
it could be that they don’t like the deal from Apple TV or Playstation, and
they are setting a disturbing precedent of throwing customers under the bus
when that happens.

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kgraves
> It’s deeply unrealistic to expect customers to change their viewing habits
> and buy new devices for this.... People using Roku devices to watch HBO on a
> large television are not going to switch to a tablet or phone.

How do you know this? are there any statistics on this? Are you going to bring
your Roku TV on the tube on the way to work? You can use your phone to watch
HBO Max. I had no problem switching between my laptop and my iPad, I just did
it today?

> “Just get another device” absolutely is not a feasible solution for most
> customers affected by this.

Well, it solved my problem, what is yours? because I don't see yelling at HBO
to support 4% of a userbase a productive use of my time. I normally see people
watching their devices anywhere they please, it isn't like they are shackled
to Linux are they?

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mlthoughts2018
I don’t know where you’re getting this 4% number. Together Roku & Amazon Fire
account for about 70% of the US streaming market, 5 million subscribers to HBO
do so through Amazon Prime Video channels (that’s about 15% of total HBO
subscribers).

The customer base being affected is huge, and your comparison with Linux is
totally off the mark.

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kgraves
Wait, HBO Max supported Linux?

To be honest this outcome is unsurprising, especially when users using Linux
on the desktop (Not Android) accounts for less than 4% market share worldwide.
[0]

[0] [https://netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-
share.asp...](https://netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx)

~~~
tinus_hn
Losing 4% is quite a lot actually but probably the actual number of people
that watch HBO on a Linux desktop is a lot lower than that.

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new_realist
Yeah, it’s the poorest 4%.

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MrDresden
Nah, us Linux users make a decent buck making sure the lights stay on for the
rest of you.

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adamnew123456
> Title: HBO Max drops Linux support in all browsers

Is there some acknowledgment that this is actually official, a statement from
their support or anything? Or did they just push some change and not check
that it actually runs on all the platforms their customers use?

Neither would surprise me but there's nothing in TFA which says either way.

~~~
Shank
I don't see any official announcement. In my browser's debug console, though,
I see plenty of HTTP 400s from a POST to
[https://comet.api.hbo.com/drm/license/widevine?keygen=playre...](https://comet.api.hbo.com/drm/license/widevine?keygen=playready&drmKeyVersion=2)
with this as the response body: "Invalid License Request".

It would not surprise me if they've intentionally or not changed the supported
licensing schemes and invalidated all Linux support without realizing it.

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Urgo
Not only did they drop linux support, they dropped support for paying
customers via Amazon. I had been paying for HBO via Amazon Prime Channels to
watch on my FireTV and also logging into HBO Now on my Nvidia Shield for 2+
years now. HBO just recently shut down HBO Now though and "upgraded" it to HBO
Max, but does not allow Amazon users to log back in.

After trying to contact HBO Max and HBO Now they both refused to acknowledge
the issue so I just canceled my subscription. The only option I would have to
watch on both devices would be to sign back up to HBO Max directly instead of
HBO via amazon, but I'm good. They lost me as their customer due to their
squabble with Amazon.

~~~
akvadrako
I recently signed up to HBO and bought a Fire TV stick just to watch it - it
took a month to arrive and by then they had dropped support. Very frustrating.

There is a workaround though - you can sideload an APK of HBO Max. So it works
- it’s just Amazon preventing it from being in their App Store.

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wmf
Probably what's happening here is that HBO is requiring Widevide level 1 DRM
but desktop Linux only supports weaker Widevine level 3.

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rasz
Still no Widevine crack/emulation after all the Intel CPU bugs?

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leo60228
From my understanding, it's relatively well known _how_ to break Widevine L3,
but nobody wants to release code (for obvious reasons). Widevine L1 is much
better secured, as it's required to be implemented in hardware.

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sys_64738
A webpage should not be making decisions based on the OS running the browser.
The web is meant to be platform agnostic.

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bigmattystyles
Honest question, does linux support HDCP or other protections they feel they
may need? Or is that not even at the OS level and could this be the reason for
the dropped support?

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ReactiveJelly
If HDCP requires any support at all from the GPU then I'm guessing it's hard
to do, since GPU drivers other than Intel are usually garbage

~~~
cgb223
What is it about Linux and/or GPUs that makes it so hard to write great
graphics drivers for it?

Do the two just not inter-operate well?

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rhn_mk1
It costs money, and the market share is not so big. It has nothing to do with
inter-operation, as Intel has proved. People also say nvidia's driver is great
except from the friction coming from nvidia's political decisions not to
cooperate with the rest of Linux community.

~~~
TheCapeGreek
It's not Nvidia's drivers being any good per se (some features are lacking,
off the top of my head async reprojection for VR), just the hardware is strong
enough to still perform well. With AMD the open source drivers are better than
the proprietary ones and generally has an easier time with compatibility, but
comes with its own host of issues (e.g. no Freesync over HDMI, no Freesync
with >1 monitor if using xorg).

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malkia
In days like these I'm glad I have chromebook (then again, I haven't checked
if HBO's android app supports such devices). Then again, I wish this didn't
happen...

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damm
Related Reddit thread
[https://old.reddit.com/r/HBOMAX/comments/i484wx/hbo_max_has_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/HBOMAX/comments/i484wx/hbo_max_has_stopped_working_on_linux_within/?sort=new)

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RickJWagner
I saw it myself. Fedora user, I've been using it for HBO Max for less than a
month. Then POOF, it no longer works.

Really poor handling of the situation, IMHO. You just get a message about 'Not
able to play this video now, try again later.' Finding tech support contact
links isn't easy. Per Reddit, if you do get ahold of them, they just brush you
off.

Overall a very poor user experience. Boo.

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jcsparks
duse for 20 years thy never supportedit anyways and i never thought thy drpped
it o begin with tey never supported it. i thinknyour mistaken ad you should
have told them macos but maybe you meed to contact your vendor for support and
ot the idiots with the mpeg

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LUmBULtERA
HBO Max also does not have apps for Roku and Amazon Fire devices. They like to
make their supported clients feel exclusive.

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lstamour
There are many posts online on how to sideload the APK on Amazon Fire TV
sticks, etc. Though I'm not personally looking forward to a future where I
can't use a web browser but instead have to run iOS or Android apps on my
laptop...

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gattr
Tangentially related - I've just checked, luckily HBO GO still works (Fedora
31, Firefox 78.0.2).

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Andrew_nenakhov
Uh-oh. So, since they don't count me as a potential consumer of their content,
does this mean I can just torrent all their stuff without repercussions?

It doesn't look that such action will result in some lost revenie, right?

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globalproctd
I can't believe I have to say this to an adult, but:

No, that does not mean you can steal.

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Andrew_nenakhov
So, can you please elaborate what exactly I would be stealing? They willingly
abandoned any revenue they could get from me by abandoning my platform.

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cortesoft
It isn’t like your ‘platform’ is a part of who you are. You could buy a device
that they support.

Content creators/providers are legally allowed to restrict the platforms they
support. For example, you have to watch some live sports through a cable tv
subscription. There is no way to pay for it separately.

Does this suck? Sure, but cable companies pay enough money to make it worth
all the lost customers (or at least that is what they are betting on)

You have no legal right to access content under your terms. Content creators
have (nearly) complete control (there are some laws around what they can do,
but requiring Linux support is not one of them)

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anoncake
So what? The law is easy to bypass and a very separate thing from morality.

