As a result, Warner Bros. Discovery expects the account-sharing crackdown to lead to more paid subscriptions in Q4 and next year. HBO Max introduced paid account sharing in April, enabling a subscriber to share access with an “extra member” for an extra $7.99 per month. It reported adding 3.4 million subscribers to HBO Max in Q2.

For years, streaming services have put forth various stopgap measures to try to avoid users sharing accounts. While some have found a level of success, nothing has been noteworthy or efficient enough that it's been replicated across other services.

Warner Bros. Discovery's efforts to limit password sharing on HBO Max will start to get "aggressive" next month, a top exec said Thursday.