Max’s Exclusive Offer: Invest in Premium Quality with Enhanced 4K Experience

If you’re a longtime subscriber to Max (formerly HBO Max), you won’t like the changes going into effect in early December. When the company switched to Max , we knew things would change, and legacy subscribers are about to lose 4K and the ability to stream on three devices at once.

HBO Max had a premium $15.99 per month ad-free plan that delivered endless content, 4K streaming, and support for three simultaneous streams on up to five accounts. With Max, that $16 plan is still available, but without the abovementioned perks. Instead, subscribers must pay for the higher “Ultimate ad-free plan” with 4K, which offers four streams at once. See where this is going?

During the transition, HBO Max promised users wouldn’t experience any changes for six months and that legacy subscribers would get to keep all those features without paying more. According to The Verge, time is up, and starting on December 5th, those accounts are getting dropped to a lower tier.

Starting on December 5th, longtime HBO Max subscribers with the $16 per month plan will no longer be able to stream eligible content in 4K, and accounts can only have two streams running at any given moment. If you’d like to retain 4K content (or streaming on more than two devices), you’ll need to upgrade to the newer Ultimate ad-free plan with 4K for $20 per month. Max isn’t the only subscription service experimenting with price and plan changes right now, as we’ve seen similar moves from Netflix , Peacock , and others over the past few months.

Thankfully, the mid-tier plan will still be completely ad-free and allow for offline playback downloads, where subscribers can download up to 30 movies or episodes on a device. If you upgrade to the highest $20 plan, that bumps up to 100 offline downloads. Basically, you’re losing the limited amount of 4K content and one additional stream.

Finally, Max still has its $9.99 ad-supported plan for those who don’t mind commercials, which streams in HD and allows two streams simultaneously — that plan also just dropped from three simultaneous streams to two streams.

Source: The Verge

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