Warner Bros. Discovery Inc said on Thursday it would merge the HBO Max streaming service with Discovery+ as a single offering, combining WarnerMedia's dramas, comedies and movies with Discovery's reality shows.Look at all the streaming services out there. Netflix is the only pure streaming brand. Everything else is hooked to something else. Hulu/D+ are all connected to the Disney apparatus, Prime is an offshoot of Amazon's other offerings, Paramount is obviously a studio first, Peacock is tied to the NBC network first, etc.
"With respect to streaming, our main priority right now is launching an integrated SVOD service," said Chief Executive Officer David Zaslav. - Source
The more central the service becomes to the company the more it's going to mirror Netflix where they make cuts based off strategic evaluations and raise prices until they find the economical sweet spot.
Also it's know secret the last set of people running HBO Max/WB were very incompetent. People can complain about Batgirl, but DC was a complete disjointed mess despite being the only IP property that should be able to rival Marvel for a cinematic universe. They also pissed off a bunch of long time filmmakers by putting everything on HBO Max simultaneously with theatrical releases and killed a lot of good will.
Crazy how out of all the streaming services HBO Max would be the first one to die. I had it going last. Another merger where the executives are so out of touch with reality they ruin their own product. And people wonder why piracy is so popular.
HBO Max and Netflix are both gonna kill themselves through terrible corporate decisions and as a result we're gonna be left with nothing but *gags*... Disney Plus. Hell world.
— aimée ☆ JLI's pr manager (@sapphyreblayze) August 3, 2022