Today several users reported that a handful of significant Cartoon Network shows—including Ben 10, Steven Universe, Regular Show, the 2016 Powerpuff Girls revival, Amazing World of Gumball, We Bare Bears, and Chowder—were suddenly no longer streaming on Max with the turn of the month, with no prior announcement of their impending removal.
Just removing Steven Universe alone seems insane to me. I’m not into it, but it has a massive fan base.
If they have old shows you like they can’t sell you new shows.
It’s all artificial scarcity, just ask the millions of people pirating content.
Ahoy, me mateys!
I must be old. Getting high and watching Power Puff Girls was a lot of fun when it was new. But everyone is talking about Steven Universe, and I have no idea what that is.
It’s Tumblr as a show
Just recently I finally convinced my wife to watch Venture Bros. I watched it on Max a couple years ago and enjoyed it, but I hadn’t gotten the chance to watch the movie. So I was hoping we could watch the series together and finish off with the movie.
The movie is on Max, but the show is not anymore. The first 3 seasons are on Netflix. Seasons 4-7… They don’t seem to be available anywhere. Well, I think Adult Swim’s website might have it but their website sucks for binging shows even on a desktop, and either worse or literally not possible to use on other devices. I could “buy” them digitally on Amazon. Instead I just bought the DVD collection and added it to my Jellyfin server.
It used to be that a show had to be really special for me to shell out money and dedicate digital and physical storage space for me to buy a physical copy. But more and more I find myself buying the DVD’s and Blu-Rays even for shows like Venture Bros that I like, but may not love. Streaming just keeps getting worse.
It does. Ownership really does beat everything, just like cash will always be king
Reminds me of WhatCulture’s video yesterday on 10 great shows that you cannot stream anywhere:
There are several HBO Max cartoons on there.
Time to sail the seas to preserve artwork.
When buying isn’t owning…
Again the same story… Digitization has removed the so called actual ownership
From my understanding, Max has to pay every time the show is viewed. So there’s a calculation they have, how many subscribers will they lose by removing it?
For reference, they removed Westworld.
It’s too bad they couldn’t pay a certain amount in one lump sum to produce a limited number of, say, small physical discs that play video for people to buy more often.
But… wouldn’t that “take up” the views of other shows?
In other words, the consumer has X amount of time for HBO Max, so they’d either be paying for more views on another show or a potential lost subscriber who can’t find anything to watch, right?
And, with all due respect, there’s no way cartoons are more expensive-per-view than other shows.
Ideally they would subscribe and then watch a different service. Or maybe a different cartoon is cheaper per view. Or maybe it’s a retroactive contract negotiation tactic. Basically negotiate or you won’t get any residuals.
Ideally they would subscribe and then watch a different service.
Thats so cynical and self defeating. “They’ll use our competition and save us money.” But you’re not wrong, they could totally be thinking that rofl.
Or maybe it’s a retroactive contract negotiation tactic. Basically negotiate or you won’t get any residuals.
Very possible. I guess all that is even more behind-the-curtain than cable, as when shows disappear there is no reason given, no “protest” like some channels will do.
I feel like streaming has made all this stuff even more opaque.
Max is notoriously capricious. If I remember correctly, they have a terrible reputation with animation on their platform.
In a sense I’m surprised these cartoons remained on there as long as they did.
I’m fairly certain that Max despises their fan base.
It’s not a cartoon but I still don’t understand why I can’t watch episodes of Tales From the Crypt on Max. It was an HBO show.
That’s dope. Thanks!
They are now quite a bit dated unfortunately First and last seasons are not great, but there are some good ones in there still. It’s just not how I remembered them back in the 90s. Still worth a watch.
What??? Season 1 is still great! Just watched the Lea Thompson episode “Only Sin Deep” last night. The show is timeless imo
-but also, yeah just buy the series, it’s so worth it
For me, the first season was them finding their way. The ones after were much better, imo. Better stories, better budget.
Could hardly watch the later shows that were in England.
The World According to Jeff Goldblum was a show made by and for Disney+. They deleted it for tax purposes. There is no legal way to watch the show now. Completely gone.
Jesus Christ. I had to look into this. Yeah. Apparently these companies that own streaming services can just remove their own content they hold the rights to if they’re having a “line not go up as much as we’d like it to” year, and receive tax credits back from the Federal government. A multi trillion dollar company, in order to pay less taxes AND siphon off taxpayer dollars to add to their coffers, is allowed to choose to make their service less valuable. What a load of fucking horseshit.
Go Capitalism!
What? Nooooooooo! SU is one of my comfort shows.
“io9 has reached out to Max for comment and clarification on the removal, and whether or not the departures were intentional updates to Max’s catalogue or if, like the recent situation with Over the Garden Wall on Hulu, an oversight that will be corrected.”
Artwork doesn’t re-Photoshop itself accidentally. This was all intentional.
As a long-time fan of CN and AS, this always happens. Their stuff always gets pushed/ split between platforms like crazy. It’s a lot more common now, but they’ve always had that problem. I love their content, but damn does it make me want to sail the seas.
Regular show is still (or again?) available on HBO Max in the Netherlands for me, so maybe an American thing?
Oh no! Not Steven Universe! Anyway…
(Goes back to watching SU on my Plex server)
