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Comment by Kerbonut | Hacker News Reader

Who is Max? I really hate what HBO did here. I was very much liking the HBO Max era, and very much unimpressed with all of what’s happening now.

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The rebranding of HBO Max to "Max" might be one of the stupidest rebrandings I've ever seen. And that's saying a lot, because I've never seen a good one to begin with. I can't fathom what led to that decision. They had a service which people liked, and was named after a channel which was synonymous with "quality TV". So they decided to throw that away, in favor of the most generic name to grace the world (until Elon tried to one up them with "X")? Really? Were they sniffing markers in the HBO board room or something?

Also, they chose to inconvenience the entire user base by forcing them to download another app and sign in over there.

And somehow it wasn't just a rebranded version of the same app. It was like a beta version of a brand new codebase.

I see your "Max" and raise you a "SyFy." And then putting wrestling on.

HBO Max to Max is the stupidest rebranding in terms of quality change. Twitter to X is the stupidest rebranding in terms of market valuation.

> I really hate what HBO did here.

“HBO”, inasmuch as that names something that can be said to act or be acted on, was more the recipient than the active party. Its what the acquiring corporate parent did to HBO.

It was that or "Dr. Pimple Popper", "Gypsy Sisters", "Hoarding: Buried Alive", and "Expedition Bigfoot" all became HBO shows.

Dilution of a good brand to pretend a hot load is something people want.

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