For years, there has been a joke among streaming services: all you need to do in order to appear successful is say that soon you want to be Netflix. Now, in a weird inversion of the modern streaming economy and everything it represents, Netflix has made it abundantly clear that it does not want HBO to feel anything like Netflix — if about 40 minutes of meticulously worded public sniping can be summed up into a sentiment. What it is looking for is simpler — and perhaps much, much stronger. It wants to bundle HBO.
That appears to be the surprising message coming from industry insiders as they observe Netflix test-driving a new strategy that looks an awful lot like the cable bundle reborn for the streaming era. Rather than focusing on disrupting HBO’s identity, or its content, Netflix is presenting itself as the monster platform where all those new premium services — including HBO — can coexist under one log-in, one bill, one front door.
If that set-up sounds familiar, it should. It’s the same way the old cable model used to work until streaming blew it up. It’s just that now, Netflix is the cable company and HBO is the prestige channel —and the streaming wars are moving somewhere that looks less like wild innovative competition and more like consolidation.
Leading this transformation are simple economics. Fragmentation has confused consumers and irritated studios. Netflix, on the other hand, has scale — enormous, world-beating scale. You name it — audience, distribution, payments infrastructure or brand recognition — and it has the advantage. If you’re HBO — still one of the most powerful storytelling engines in entertainment, even if it contending with fluctuating subscriber numbers — that kind of reach is priceless.
And Netflix knows it.
Packaging HBO doesn’t mean re-engineering its DNA. Netflix doesn’t have to reinvent “Succession,” or “Euphoria,” or “The Last of Us.” It just wants to be able to say: You can watch them here. That’s the real power play, and that’s why the idea has Hollywood buzzing. Suddenly a Netflix bundle with HBO doesn’t just make Netflix a destination, but the ecosystem that every other service plugs into.
For Netflix, the attraction is clear. Bundling means it can grow revenue, lower churn and increase customer retention without spending billions more on original programming. Why bother reinventing premium when you could bundle someone else’s? It also effectively makes Netflix the new gatekeeper app for streaming, where consumers start every time they power up a TV.
For HBO the calculation is more complicated, but equally tempting. Netflix distribution could help stabilize subscriber numbers, reach viewers who have drifted away to other platforms and relieve some of the pressure on Max to do all the lifting. Certainly some executives hate the optics — HBO has always been the classy sibling, Netflix was the disruptive outsider — but money and reach often shout down pride.
The rest of Hollywood, though, is watching through clenched teeth. As the new retail hub for premium channels, Netflix changes the power structure fast. Studios that formerly attempted to go head-to-head with Netflix could end up working alongside it. The existential question becomes Not, How do we beat Netflix? to How do we look inside Netflix without getting eaten by it?
That is the tension that is why you’re seeing so much angst about licensing decisions, distribution deals and cross-platform partnerships now. Or what is an established fact: streaming is no longer a cold war — it’s a reshuffle, and Netflix desperation to bundle HBO is indication that the next phase won’t be about exclusivity, but aggregation.
The wild part? It’s also a plan that could serve everyone well: Netflix increases its value, HBO broadens its reach, and viewers eliminate at least one headache — fewer apps, fewer bills, fewer hoops.
This isn’t Netflix attempting to make HBO into another version of Netflix. It’s Netflix trying to make itself the place where everything you love — including HBO — discreetly ends up.
