Max ‘Enshittifies’ Itself By Making John Oliver Harder To Watch
from the enshittify-ALL-the-things! dept
Now that subscriber growth has slowed, streaming TV giants have taken the predictable turn of making their services shittier and more expensive to deliver Wall Street (impossibly) unlimited quarterly revenue growth.
That means higher prices, annoying new surcharges, greater restrictions, more layoffs, more cut corners, worse customer service, and a lot of pointless mergers designed specifically to goose stock valuations and provide big fat tax breaks.
The king of said “growth for growth’s sake” consolidation was of course the AT&T–>Warner Brothers–>Discovery series of mergers, which resulted in no limit of brand degradation, layoffs, and absolute chaos in the empty pursuit of unlimited scale (aka “enshittification”). The dumb merger already killed Mad Magazine, HBO, and countless television shows, driving millions of subscribers to the exits.
But Max executives clearly aren’t done with ham-fisted efforts to make stocks go up. This week Max executives decided that they’d make John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight harder to watch by no longer making show clips available on YouTube the next day:
The goal was to apparently drive subscribers to the Max streaming service. But because they’re apparently too cheap to pay residuals and hosting costs, Max also no longer lets users watch old seasons of the show, meaning that only the last two seasons of the show are available. In short: the quest for unrealistic quarterly growth sooner or later creates perverse incentives to cannibalize brand quality.
Again, this is all par for the course for an industry that learned absolutely nothing from the scale-chasing disaster that ultimately was traditional cable TV. They’re going to continue on this path until they see a dramatic subscriber exodus to cheap or free services (whether that’s TikTok and Twitch or, more obviously, piracy), at which point they’ll blame everything but themselves (VPNs! China!) for the self-inflicted wound.
Filed Under: consolidation, growth for growth's sake, john oliver, last week tonight, password sharing, piracy, price hikes, streaming
Companies: warner bros. discovery
Comments on “Max ‘Enshittifies’ Itself By Making John Oliver Harder To Watch”
I can’t beat my tweet…
Dear HBO or whatever fscked up merger name you are using this week…
THIS IS NOT HOW YOU GET SUBSCRIBERS, THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE MORE MONEY.
You assholes have burned BILLIONS & keep doing it over & over expecting a different result.
Enshittification, you are the poster child.
https://twitter.com/That_AC/status/1759800129123414445
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You can say “fuck” here.
Distribution irony
The irony of the internet era is that selling your work to these content aggregation and distribution companies is only worthwhile until your fans want to see you on YouTube. Once you’re popular enough that your largest audience is on socials and YouTube, it’s better to own your own brand and directly monetize without a marketing department in the way. John Oliver would make much more using producing his own show and YouTube to promote a Patreon or a substack than letting HBO control who can see it, where and when.
Re: Directly monetised
Being on YouTube as a brand isn’t directly monetising. You’d need to host the content yourself, YouTube can stop paying you at any point for any reason they choose.
Onlyfans is much closer to directly monetising, or bandcamp.
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YouTube is a useful distribution channel because of its large user base. You can use patreon or similar for monetization. Being behind a paywall is not the best way to build an audience.
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John Oliver reportedly makes $8 million annually. The likelihood he makes significantly more than that, combined with enough to staff a room of researchers and writers and several people to do production (all at higher salaries, because I’m sure you aren’t recommending John on patron is unlikely. Advertisers on the web have shown a significantly higher aversion to risk than HBO’s lawyers when it comes to John Oliver’s content, reducing sponsorship values which are already reportedly low. Need I remind you John Oliver’s penchant for insulting his corporate owners? Of course, you probably assume the ability to covert followers is high, and that’s far from a guarantee.
He can. its possible. would he though? big question.
And that is where the other side matters. John Oliver makes $8 million annually and is worth an estimated $30-$50 million. He could make much more money. Why should he want to? All that money he leaves on the tabe goes to handling shit he doesn’t want to deal with.
You aren’t convincing me the 46 year old comedian with a cushy high 7 figure job should go grindcore on the chance he would make it even bigger, at the expense of more work and a loss of stability.
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More than 70% of Americans fall into that range. I assume you mean “$30 million – $50 million” or “$30-50 million”.
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Just no dude.
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Please, don’t quibble over a typo that’s not really a typo. It’s bad form.
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Actually, that’s correct the way it’s written, no need for ‘correction’.
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Except John Oliver is under exclusive contract to HBO right now.
They’ve also region locked the youtube clips so I can’t watch them at all. While it personally doesn’t stop me watching the show, it makes it so much harder to share and discuss things with those in my circles- which is the entire point of the program
🤦♀️
Won’t stop others from uploading the whole show or the main segment. One YouTube video of Sunday’s show has 11K views.
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In alphabetical order:
* Last.Week.Tonight.with.John.Oliver.S11E01.1080p.HEVC.x265-MeGusta.mkv [346M]
* Last.Week.Tonight.with.John.Oliver.S11E01.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH.mkv [1.2G]
* Last.Week.Tonight.with.John.Oliver.S11E01.February.18.2024.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-NTb.mkv [2.7G]
* Last.Week.Tonight.with.John.Oliver.S11E01.February.18.2024.720p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-NTb.mkv [1.3G]
* Last.Week.Tonight.with.John.Oliver.S11E01.iNTERNAL.1080p.HEVC.x265-MeGusta.mkv [370M]
* Last.Week.Tonight.with.John.Oliver.S11E01.iNTERNAL.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH.mkv [2.7G]
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And getting almost immediately DMCA’d off of YouTube.
'Well as long as I'm downloading previous seasons, why not this one?'
Because clearly forcing people to wait several days to watch something online, and decimating the online catalogue to only include the last two seasons of a wildly popular show will drive people to pay for a demonstrably worse product.
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No one ever said they were smart, just greedy.
off to download a car
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Oh, when this mess all started I saw plenty of reply guys insisting they were smart and clearly the only reason they would have scrapped Batgirl is that it must have been terrible.
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Don’t do that! You won’t be able to subscribe to the extra features like:
* heated seats
* enhanced mileage per charge
* automatic emergency braking
* remote start
* ability to drive over 40 MPH
* windshield wiper and defrost functionality
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That’s why I drive a Mercedes rather than a BMW. Why the hell should I carry around the extra weight of tech I’m locked off from using?
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I guess they learned nothing from their adventures in Oz, where they would delay tv & movies for months and months.
They would get all upset that some people “resorted” to downloading because they refused to think the consumers were worth the effort to hit a button and make releases happen sooner.
They didn’t understand why they didn’t have as great of a following for shows that for the munchkins had already been spoiled for them by social media as those who already saw it weren’t about to wait 6 months or a year to mention the twist in the hot new show thats going to be leftovers from the back of the fridge by the time it finally airs for the first time in another section of the global market.
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Back when Doctor Who aired on SyFy in the US, the lead time was so bad that on at least one occasion they debuted a Christmas special the following July.
Pirates, of course, had already seen the full season by then, which I suspect is part of the reason the distribution moved over to networks that could do day-and-date international releases.
It certainly did motivate me to look at other avenues to watch the show, but probably not the ones they wanted, matey.
How is this in any way supposed going to convert viewers of the YouTube clips into Max subscribers??
For a show that publishes weekly, is any YouTube viewer going to be so put off by “now I have to watch John Oliver on a different day of the week” that they’ll be willing to pay $20 a month?
I had "Max"...killed it
I WAS a subscriber to HBO Max…when they did the change to “Max” and removed the ONE show I was currently watching that justified my subscription (Babylon 5) along with HUNDREDS or even thousands of other movies and TV shows, I immediately cancelled my subscription.
You don’t win over or even RETAIN customers by making your offerings less…especially in a competitive environment where EVERYONE is asking for $10-$20/month!
I currently pay for Amazon Prime (now just for the free shipping, I am NOT watching ads nor paying extra!), Crunchyroll, HiDive, YouTube Premium, Paramount+, Apple Music, and probably one or two others I am forgetting about! Enough is enough. If you want my monthly money, then you give me a good value. The current “MAX” ain’t it!
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Wasn’t there some kerfluffle with Crunchyroll recently?
Something about purchased content vanishing?
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Yeah; same as everyone else, and it’ll keep happening as long as long as government regulators let them get away with calling such things “purchases” (and people keep supporting it). But, by Karl’s logic, it’s the viewers that are the “pirates”, not the services that are forcefully taking away people’s “property”.
Crunchyroll, by the way, started off as a for-profit site for hosting uploaded video—mostly anime that had been uploaded in violation of copyright law. But their popularity allowed them to get investors, and shortly thereafter they came out against copyright infringement.
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Weird. That show’s long been famous for never paying royalties, so I wonder why. To quote its writer, J. Michael Straczynski:
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FWIW I don’t see ads when I play Amazon Prime videos in my browser. It might be uBlock Origin.
Question:
Why aren’t you (or anyone) telling wall street to stop giving unrealistic demands (like quarterly growths) to big companies?
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Because the entire global economy operates on the assumption of perpetual growth.
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Because society itself is a mass delusion that only works at all when everybody’s playing pretend on some level.
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Because even if someone were to do so, big money wouldn’t care. The people in a position to do so are already owned by big money.
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What does it mean to “tell Wall Street”? Certainly there are people saying such things, so why are you not counting them? But remember that public companies generally work on one vote per share, so those with the most money make the rules.
Perhaps what people should be more vocal about is that fund companies like Vanguard and BlackRock should allow individuals to vote shares held indirectly. If you invest in a fund that holds thousands of companies, you should be able to log onto their website and tell them how to vote for any open ballots across those thousands. Such funds are often the largest single shareholder, so it could make a real difference.
I have, by the way, been “telling” HBO and the entire MAFIAA for decades that I won’t participate in their shit, by not giving them money. It’s the only thing they’ll notice, but so far it’s much too small of an effect. The majority of people are effectively saying “this is fine”.
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Same for triple-a games.
Entities in capitalistic systems always progress toward rent-collection.
I think this is, all in, a pretty mediocre take and waters down the term “enshittifciation”. Delaying free YouTube content, while showing it earlier for paying subscribers, is something that’s been around for years and a very active part of promoting YouTube Channels. “Early for Pateron Subscribers”, or “One week early on Nebula” is a pretty common refrain among my the highest quality Channels I watch on youtube.
I mean, is LegalEagle, Hbomberguy, Philosophy Tube, MinutePhysics, Extra Credits, Real Engineering, Forgotten Weapons, Wendover Productions, Half as Interesting, and Knowing Better Enshittifying?
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Last Week Tonight isn’t YouTube content, but it’s been common practice for HBO/Warner Bros./Warner Bros. Discover/the Warner Brothers and their sister Dot to upload the primary story from an episode of the show on YouTube the day after it airs on HBO. That WBD is now ending that practice will make the show less relevant, because it was having that story on YouTube the next day that helped boost the popularity of Last Week Tonight and thrust its featured story into a spotlight. And if you think WBD removing past seasons of the show on Max is a good idea, I’ll have to ask you if you have a financial stake in WBD.
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When it’s on YouTube, it’s an ad for the main show on HBO. The HBO show is just as relevant as it ever has been while the ads are now less relevant. Like lots and lots and lots of other content on YouTube. This will probably be incentivizing people to go and purchase their main product if they see value in the topical nature. If the practice is as bad as people are making out for, HBO should know in short order. But I doubt it.
I also contend that its a very valid business practice that doesn’t indicate enshitification based on the fact that I gave a dozen or so examples contrary to the claim.
Do I have stock with WBD? That’s a bullshit, low quality, accusation for someone that has an opinion that differs from you. Do better if you want a response.
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Hilarious, your retort an “accusation” which too obviously ignores the important part of the sentence, which happened to be an important part of the enshittification labelling in the article which you also ignored. i don’t think you are serious, and i don’t think you think the “accusation” (lol) is serious.
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Based on what evidence?
Yes, because David Zaslav has done such a great job of course-correcting based on negative market reactions up to this point.
Quick question: of those “dozen or so examples”, how many of them were television shows from premium cable or streaming sites owned by the Big Five studios? I’m counting zero, but it’s possible I’m just not as smart as you.
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My evidence is Netflix. When they cracked down on password sharing and added an add based tier the saw a growth in advertisers. They introduced enough friction, and the cost was low enough, that paying was the preferable choice.
I also maintain that it’s an increasingly irrelevant distinction that a show is time delayed on YouTube but then hosted on either MAX or Nebula. Functionally, both provide identical services to me. On demand, streaming content, with a catalog. The incumbents in the space desperately want this not to be true, but it is and that’s why they are getting absolutely hammered.
Maybe fix your crap, Max
I have been an HBO/Max subscriber on some level (Cable/Satellite/Streaming) for almost three decades and my experience watching John Oliver has me considering the exit.
The stream was stuttering and the audio kept going out of sync, forcing me to stop and resume multiple times during the show. Had I just downloaded the show, I know I would have been able to play it from my media server with no issues or interruptions.
The funny thing is that John Oliver is pretty much the only thing left on Max that I even watch, so maybe it’s time I voted with my wallet.
How is it?
That NONE of these folks looked back and Watched the Scifi channel and a few others, Like HULU, TRY to get things up for broadcast on the net?
The cartoon networks Screwed themselves so many times it was and IS, totally commercials.
They ARNT getting the hint. People are upset, and TIRED of the garbage.
I used to watch LWT on HBO. Once they started messing with HBO, I switched to waiting until the episodes came out on YouTube.
All they’re doing with this move is making LWT less relevant to me.
Maybe that’s the plan? Trying to drive down LWT ratings so they can drop John Oliver?
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I doubt it. That assumes competence on David Zaslav’s behalf, when all available evidence shows the opposite.
I’m curious. Now that we have witnessed multiple corporations enshitifying themselves, I wonder if it’s a one way street.
Has anyone noticed any of the currently enshitified businesses doing anything to reverse their condition?
I am beginning to think its a lot like the dinosaurs’ fate. Once a corporation has begun walking this path, there’s simply no turning back.
Why?
Because once the corporate heads get a taste of the free cash from phony nickel and dime charges they make their customers pay, they simply cannot fathom ever going back to less money incoming.
There is nothing on this planet as addictive as money.
Queue the idiots
In what world does a company that sells a product have any expectation to give it away the next day?