Seriously. They’re changing the fuckin’ name again
When you realize that you could live forever on what companies spend on repainting and hanging new signs after an image shakeup…
I remember my wife complaining that they are spending millions to change the signs on the hospital she worked at and not getting a pay raise.
It’s especially annoying when they do it with hospitals. They have money to repaint the ambulances but cut services.
So true, and all that to boost the ego of some higher up.
That’s the thing when you sell the idea of something which the value can’t be evaluated easily, you can totally bullshit on everything.
“This new brand image will boost our visibility on the market…”
When in reality nobody knows if that new brand will stick or if the users will really like it.
So start a contracting business that repaints and hangs new signs when companies want an image shake up.
So what is it now?
Edit: omg, it’s back to HBO Max.
Probably because they realized everyone still called it that because no one thinks of what “Max” is without the “HBO” label. I just wonder how their user research failed so badly in the rebrand to “Max.”
If they added one more x onto maxx and bought some cheap property rights they could have done some serious rebranding
MAX just launched in Australia, but it’s the one millionth and last streaming platform to launch here so we’re all ignoring it.
I’d argue the only indefensible move was changing it to “Max” at all. The other rebrands sort of made sense in context
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but this is the way I understand it:
- HBO Go was intended for cable subscribers. You needed to log in with your cable credentials.
- HBO Now was for people who wanted HBO Go but didn’t have cable. Due to agreements with various content providers at the time, HBO had to launch a second service to accommodate these people without breaking any agreements.
- Warner Discovery Channel Bros. buys the HBO brand. New agreements are made, allowing HBO Go and HBO Now to be combined into a single app, now called HBO Max
- Warner Discovery decides to rebrand the app as just “Max”, regrets it, and here we are today.
You’re almost entirely correct. Slight caveats – on step two, HBO Now had a slightly different catalog than Go due to said agreements. Then on step three they also added a bunch of non-HBO stuff too. You probably know this stuff I’m just spelling it out for anyone who might not.
I did not. Thanks.
You are 💯 correct, and impressive you know the details!
The funniest part about it all to me is that AT&T bought Warner / HBO in 2014 - 2017 for 80+ billion at the height of Game of Thrones popularity (after winning an antitrust lawsuit against the merger).
Then season 8 happened, and in 2018 AT&T immediately sold Warner / HBO to Discovery where they merged into the David Zadislav Hollywood cluster fuck they’ve become.
The branding then unbranding of HBO to MAX was after the Warner Discorvery merger. They just have no idea what to do with their IP as they have no experience making or working in the creative industry.
<Bark Bark> What is it boy? The CEO is at the bottom of the well? “Go Now Max” … oh no! (Reference: Lassie, a show from the 1950s)
Home Office Box Office. Kinda catchy acronym.
HBO Go and HBO Now were different products though
The fact that I’m learning this from your comment enhances this meme
Akshually, they were different front ends accessing essentially the same library of content. Go was included with your cable subscription, and Now was a streaming license you could purchase separately. They weren’t really different products, just different payment options.
Eh, with that logic you could argue that all music streaming services are the same product with different front ends. Which, in a way, is kinda true…
Go existed for a few years before Now was released, and they were separate websites/apps. I’d say they qualify as different products. I would be interested to know if they shared any backend tech though. Would probably save a pretty penny if they shared a CDN.
If all music streaming services were owned by HBO then yeah, I would argue that.
Did both services have separate content catalogues?
Yeah, the websites/apps were the different front ends. But you were still streaming HBO. The movies and shows were the same, and if you had one it would be redundant to get the other. Max was introduced as an expanded library for Now, but eventually replaced both and Go was discontinued.
Streaming apps have their own catalogs and backends (although most of them license “all the music”).
How would one even know this with all the name changes?
If there was ever a time you wanted to watch content they had, you would find out I guess. I found out when my partner wanted to watch Game of Thrones newer series. We dont pay for cable so one of those apps we couldn’t access as it was specifically for users who had cable and paid for the HBO channels there. The other was one you could pay 14.99 a month or some shit like Netflix to have access to their content.
Then I think they got bought or something and combined the 2 slowly into HBO Max… they wondered if just calling it Max was better, and probably found out it wasn’t so they changed it back.
I came in here to say the same, I used to know the difference between them (because I had both of them 🙄)
HBO Go required a cable subscription and Now didn’t. I think both of them only had shows produced by HBO, so it was a much smaller collection.
Go was around for a few years as the only HBO streaming platform, but it came with your cable subscription, so you had to pay for a super expensive cable package to access it. That’s partly why Game of Thrones was the top pirated TV show ever, at least at the time.
They eventually released Now, which to my understanding was just Go but you could pay for it directly without a cable package. Both Go and Now existed simultaneously for a few years.
Eventually HBO Max was released, which is the platform we know today with a lot more than just HBO content. That one was renamed to just Max and is now being renamed again back to HBO Max because Max is a stupid name.
That sounds about right. I think I had one through cable and one through some partnership either Hulu or t-mobile did.
Coming January 2026, MAX HBO, it’s MAXimum HBO.
I am starting to think the CEO of HBO is stuck at the bottom of a well and is trying to call for help by repeatedly changing the name of the company to spell out a rescue message.
Max is probably the name of the CEO’s dog who is standing at the edge of well looking in and the CEO is trying to say “Go Now Max! MAX Get Help!”
I think the issue is that the CEO in charge changed. HBO is owned by conglomerates and has changed hands a couple times now.
That is what I am saying I think amid all the confusion they might have accidentally left their CEO at the bottom of a well and forgot about it.
lol
Bears, Beets, Home Box Office.
Streaming services are not a joke, Jim
cant wait for MAX GO NOW
Meanwhile everyone in the UK: yeah it’s on 4OD
(A service that’s not been called 4OD in over a decade)
Doesn’t help that they changed it to a name that isn’t that helpful. “Lets call our name the same across everything! This will not cause issues!”
All4 was at least somewhat sensible.
Legitimately you just now reminded me it’s no longer called All4 either
4OD 'till I die
It’s final form: Cinemax!
Good ol’ Skinemax.
Good God, am I back on Reddit?
They change the name so you lot meme about it and keep spreading free advertisements for them. Well done.
Complains that post is too reddit like
Makes aggressively reddit-like comment
Okay then.
Can’t rebuke content of post
Proceeds to go after style of post
Okay then.
There was nothing to rebuke.
Have fun with all that though.
The amount of space in my brain that is dedicated to knowing the history of rebranding is too damn high.
Is someone paying folk to produce HBO brand name memes? I find them all to ady to enjoy.
It was just announced that they are renaming it back to HBO Max from Max, that’s why you are seeing the memes, it’s fucking funny how idiotic they were with the name changes, not everything is an ad…
I mean, branding is kinda an ad, it’s the purpose of the brand, especially renaming it.
But I ask bcs some companies (like for movies) do pay people to produce (seemingly anonymous) memes to get peoples attention.
(And perhaps my bad, bcs I never got why steaming services names are funny, even those very short lived ones, so this might add to my confusion)
