HBO Max

 

There are a handful of shows that interest me on HBO Max, but had held off on subscribing to the service because honestly my TV-watching queue is full. However, when they had a 3 month deal for $6 for black Friday I decided to jump on the deal. So far we've started watching Curb Your Enthusiasm (again) and House of the Dragon (more to come on that soon). There are a couple of others on the list as well. I'm bringing this situation up specifically for the 3 month for $6 black Friday deal. This service is typically $15 per month ad-free, and I believe $10 per month with ads. The black Friday deal was the with ads. Despite watching 4 episodes of Curb and the entire season of House of the Dragon, I've only seen two ads. Both were for other HBO Max shows and neither interrupted the program I was watching, having occurred at the very beginning. This entire experience has made me change my thought process on adding streaming services with ad tiers, such as Netflix or even Disney+ these days. I assumed the ads would interrupt the show, but thus far not on HBO Max. Although apparently Peacock premium does have ads that interrupt, so it may be a trial and error situation. When you look at the quality of a show like House of the Dragon, it is hard to believe they are making any money when giving away their service for $2 per month. You hear about a lot of these services losing money, and this is likely why (this plus password sharing). I suppose that is an entirely different topic. Regardless, I've enjoyed this nearly ad-free streaming service thus far.