HBO Max has seen a progressive increase in viewership since the service first launched in May, 2020. The service already has nearly 40 million subscribers and close to 20 million active monthly users. Not bad for a streaming service that’s less than a year old with limited content huh.

As with most streaming services, HBO Max’s draw was classic, popular content with original movies and TV shows sprinkled in between. Chief content officer Casey Bloys stated in a 2020 Variety article,

“On HBO Max, we have kind of put together a lot of amazing brands and content from ‘Friends’ reruns, ‘Big Bang Theory,’ ‘South Park,’ Studio Ghibli, all sorts of library that we’re going to take advantage of people coming in to try the movies, and hopefully they will see what a great value HBO Max is.”

The service hit a road block after its initial surge of subscribers, topping out at close to 35 million. That’s a big number considering the service didn’t land on Roku and Fire TV devices until 6 months after launch, plus their interface isn’t the easiest to navigate when looking for something to watch. This can be seen when you look at the number of total subscribers (38m) versus their monthly active users (17m).

In late 2020 HBO Max announced it would premier its entire line of 2021 movies on the platform, this move effectively put them in the running to compete with other low cost AVOD platforms like Netflix and Disney Plus. They also announced an ad-supported version of the platform coming in June, 2021.

How to Use HBO Max

For many HBO Max users including myself, the price just didn’t match the content. What I mean by that is many of the the shows and movies on the platform don’t interest me. Compared to similar services like Netflix and Disney plus, the price seemed a bit steep. But then I noticed something.

The average cost of going to the movie theater for one person is about $30 including food and drinks. The average cost to rent a movie online is $20. For $15 a month I have access to the latest movies releases plus more. When you look at it that way, having an HBO Max subscription makes sense.