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There seems to be some confusion here about what is going on at HBO. The new leadership is cutting a bunch of stuff, not just Sesame Street. There are two basic

There seems to be some confusion here about what is going on at HBO. The new leadership is cutting a bunch of stuff, not just Sesame Street. There are two basic reasons for this. Either it was costing more to show than it was bringing back in terms of people actually watching it (presumably the case w/ Sesame Street) or the quality was deemed potentially damaging to the brand (i.e. Batgirl being axed without ever getting released at all). And yes, HBO Max is merging with Discovery+ into a combined platform. It will use the Discovery+ software (which is presumably better because HBO Max is terrible), but will offer all of the content that remains on both platforms by the time this happens, likely next summer. https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/2022-08-19/hbo-max-cuts-dozens-of-titles-in-a-cost-cutting-move-before-a-merger-with-discovery https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/2022-08-19/hbo-max-cut...

indigodaddy 4y ago
The HBO Max UX/UI has probably improved by 10x IMO over the last year and a half or so. Hopefully they’ll keep that UI and maybe only change the backend streaming engine (if indeed the Discovery one is actually better).
ibero 4y ago
> It will use the Discovery+ software (which is presumably better because HBO Max is terrible) i know the new leadership claims Discover's tech is better, but i wonder if that is true. i wonder if it is PR-speak for creating some picture of reciprocity ("yes, HBO has content-- but discovery is bringing something to the party too!)." i know the HBO Max app gets a lot of well-deserved flack. still, i imagine the underlining infrastructure is much more robust than anything discovery deals with in terms of load, scale, and internationalization. dropping a new episode of House of Dragon tonight, or the new Wonder Woman movie in 4k HDR/etc. at a specific time must require far more interesting tech than whatever usage patterns the latest episode of 90 Day Fiancee necessitates.
- lostdog 4y ago
  Well, Today, HBO Max has a bug where every time you go to the site, it pretends you're logged out. You click login, and it logs you in without having to put in any credentials (so it knew you were logged in). Then, when you click a show, you have to tell it which profile you're using (which it also already knew, because it was showing you lists customized for the profile), and then it returns you to the home screen where you must go find the same show again. This has been going on for a couple weeks. It's not stopping me from watching, but it is an obvious bug that should have been caught by any testing at all, and should be a P0 fix this tomorrow production bug. I'm glad they did eventually fix the last bug: It was impossible to select a profile and start watching unless you resized the browser window down to half size. I can't imagine how they accomplished that one!
- jahlove 4y ago
  > dropping a new episode of House of Dragon tonight ... at a specific time must require far more interesting tech than whatever usage patterns the latest episode of 90 Day Fiancee necessitates. HBO Max crashes for thousands during ‘House of the Dragon’ premiere: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/22/hbo-max-crash https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/22/hbo-max-c...
  - ibero 4y ago
    a temporary outage for thousands, out of millions, is a success. not sure what kind of scale you are used to.

indigodaddy 4y ago

The HBO Max UX/UI has probably improved by 10x IMO over the last year and a half or so. Hopefully they’ll keep that UI and maybe only change the backend streaming engine (if indeed the Discovery one is actually better).

ibero 4y ago

> It will use the Discovery+ software (which is presumably better because HBO Max is terrible) i know the new leadership claims Discover's tech is better, but i wonder if that is true. i wonder if it is PR-speak for creating some picture of reciprocity ("yes, HBO has content-- but discovery is bringing something to the party too!)." i know the HBO Max app gets a lot of well-deserved flack. still, i imagine the underlining infrastructure is much more robust than anything discovery deals with in terms of load, scale, and internationalization. dropping a new episode of House of Dragon tonight, or the new Wonder Woman movie in 4k HDR/etc. at a specific time must require far more interesting tech than whatever usage patterns the latest episode of 90 Day Fiancee necessitates.

lostdog 4y ago
Well, Today, HBO Max has a bug where every time you go to the site, it pretends you're logged out. You click login, and it logs you in without having to put in any credentials (so it knew you were logged in). Then, when you click a show, you have to tell it which profile you're using (which it also already knew, because it was showing you lists customized for the profile), and then it returns you to the home screen where you must go find the same show again. This has been going on for a couple weeks. It's not stopping me from watching, but it is an obvious bug that should have been caught by any testing at all, and should be a P0 fix this tomorrow production bug. I'm glad they did eventually fix the last bug: It was impossible to select a profile and start watching unless you resized the browser window down to half size. I can't imagine how they accomplished that one!
jahlove 4y ago
> dropping a new episode of House of Dragon tonight ... at a specific time must require far more interesting tech than whatever usage patterns the latest episode of 90 Day Fiancee necessitates. HBO Max crashes for thousands during ‘House of the Dragon’ premiere: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/22/hbo-max-crash https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/22/hbo-max-c...
- ibero 4y ago
  a temporary outage for thousands, out of millions, is a success. not sure what kind of scale you are used to.