Max now packs 50% more ads into its streams

[midian182]

A hot potato: A week after a report showed that Amazon Prime has doubled the amount of ads it shows on the platform, it's been discovered that Max is doing the same thing. However, unlike Amazon, Max isn't trying to hide this increase.

The streamer's support page confirms that its Max Basic with Ads plan now shows six minutes of ads per hour. According to an archive of the same page (via PCWorld), the plan showed four minutes of ads per hour as recently as February 2025. That means Max's ad load is now 50% heavier than it was at the start of the year.

It appears that Max has also broken its promise never to show ads during HBO programming – Max will soon be known as HBO Max again. An episode of The Last of Us had three ad breaks, as well as several ads before the video started.

Before

After

Redditors have noticed the increase. One user said that they used to only see ads at the beginning of shows. Now, commercials appear multiple times during streams. Another user said that not only are there more of these ads, but they are also more intrusive and repetitive.

Max's basic tier with ads costs $9.99 per month, whereas the ad-free plan is $16.99 per month.

It's not just Max that is forcing more commercials down people's throats. It was recently discovered that Amazon has also doubled its ad load, from a rate of two to 3.5 minutes of ads every hour to four to six minutes of ads per hour. Unlike Max, Amazon hasn't been forthcoming about the change, preferring to inform investors rather than customers.

Netflix, which charges $7.99 per month for its ad-supported tier, has the fewest number of ads, while Hulu, Tubi, and Paramount+ are at the higher end.

Disney+ also increased its ad load since launch, going from the original four minutes of ads per hour to 5.3 minutes. As of 2023, Hulu's seven minutes of ads every hour made it the worst offender among subscription streamers.

Despite more ads appearing on these streaming services, the numbers still pale in comparison to traditional TV channels, where ads take up anything between 15 to 18 minutes every hour.

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Max now packs 50% more ads into its streams

 

[trparky]

Typo in the text under the title.

Edit: It’s fixed now.

 

[MarkHughes]

If you sail the high seas you never see adverts.

I have Netflix and Disney+, Both of which I have on a tier that has no adverts. As soon as those tiers get too expensive or go away I will ditch them, There are always alternatives.

 

[yRaz]

The race for growth will backfire. They already maxed out the amount of people trying to subscribe and what they're willing to pay, so now they need to insert ads. People are canceling their subscriptions as prices increase, ads are just another reason for people to cancel.

 

[Hassanabi]

I've always sailed the high seas, there never was a compelling reason to pay for content I didn't have to.

The content I watch is spread out over like 6 content providers, meaning if I want to watch stuff as soon as it releases I'll need 6 active subscriptions.

I also want the highest quality without adverts, that means I'll be paying like what 120 bucks a month or something?

What makes it even more fun is when series or worse yet seasons are not licensed in your region, so you'll be unable to finish a series you started or can't start a series at all if it never was licensed in the first place.

But even if you pay for it, you can't play it on using the software you want to use, so I can't use my GPU to upscale the content using MadVR. No I have to use their apps + websites, watch their heavily compressed content and just hope they don't remove stuff I'm watching or want to watch soon.

There's even series of which seasons are spread over 2 or more content providers, like do a simple search like "Seasons not available on Netflix reddit" and you'll find dozens of posts about shows either gone missing entirely, is missing partially because of licensing or even region licensing.

Oh and if your internet is down or disrupted tough luck watching shows if you didn't make it available offline, if that's even an option on every content provider.

Meanwhile I have a NAS setup with two pieces of software, one that searches content based on quality, audio and sub languages automatically after I add in a show and one that downloads it after it located it.

It's practically set and forget, I never have to worry about a gazillion subscriptions, I don't have to cancel/rejoin every month and deal with the annoyance of missing content. Content is downloaded at 250 megabytes per second and is avaliable both on- and offline for me.

 

[FaTaL]

Fck you

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Seriously, who buys things from ads spammed into their video streams? I dont know anyone who has...I know a LOT that are getting fed up with ads and are learning about unlock origin and pihole and pirating sites though....

 

[yRaz]

Seriously, who buys things from ads spammed into their video streams? I dont know anyone who has...I know a LOT that are getting fed up with ads and are learning about unlock origin and pihole and pirating sites though....

Maybe they're starting to think they're cable companies

 

[toooooot]

Television is back! Well, it is not like we do not have alternatives, free alternatives.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

I dropped Netflix with their last price hike. Told the wife and kids I can spend the roughly $240 (for basic, no ad plan) it costs a year on something better.

Only streaming service I pay for now is Discovery+ and only the wife watches stuff on it now, but she's always watching something on it. Otherwise access to other streaming services I borrow from my brother (prime, disney+, hulu).

What I really miss is the ability to buy a movie/tv show on DVD. Things are rarely coming over to disc anymore and 95% of everything is staying on streaming services. I don't want to pay some streaming service to view a show if I want to watch it again sometime down the road. I like having a movie/show on DVD/Blu-ray so I can watch them when I want. I also like to copy them to my plex server so I can watch them anytime I want from anywhere I am.

There are places that copy shows/movies and burn them to disc because newer stuff isn't coming out on disc....so I basically end up getting pirated copies of shows/movies from other places and pay them for it. I'd rather a studio got the money for the content they created, but if they're too cheap to put them out on physical media then that is their loss.

 

[godrilla]

Netflix is also added some level of adds on their $26.99/month premium tier.