
Introducing HBO Max, a New Streaming Service from WarnerMedia - hhs
https://www.hbo.com/hbo-news/hbo-max-streaming-service
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smacktoward
I am just astonished at how bad HBO/Warners' ability to brand these things is.

Currently they have two streaming services, HBO GO and HBO NOW, both of which
stream the same programming (whatever's on HBO) but are different because
one's for people who subscribe to HBO on cable and the other is for everyone
else. The services have easily mixed-up names that have nothing to do with the
difference between them, and practically identical logos/icons, so it's super
easy for new users to get confused about which one they actually want.

Warner's solution to this confusion is to add a _third_ streaming service,
_also_ branded with the HBO name, but not having any connection to HBO beyond
carrying some of its programming. If you already have HBO GO or HBO NOW, that
subscription doesn't mean you can access HBO MAX; as far as I can see it
doesn't even earn you a discount on it. And if you're coming to HBO as a cord-
cutter, now instead of there at least being only one choice that's right for
you, you now have to choose between HBO NOW and HBO MAX -- and they don't even
do you the courtesy of at least clearly positioning MAX as "everything on HBO
plus some more stuff" so the choice can be simplified to "just HBO" vs.
"HBO++".

If you were going to set out to intentionally design a menu of streaming
services that was as confusing as possible to the customer, you'd be hard
pressed to do better than this...

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pixelbath
They're likely piggybacking on the HBO brand that has, _for years_ , been some
of the best long-form programming on television (even their serial shows).

The fact that they'd jam a bunch of re-runs and television shows into a
product whose name is literally "Home Box Office" shows how little AT&T/Warner
really understand HBO beyond "it generates piles of money."

