HBO’s new stand-alone premium service, HBO Now is finally here! This means you no longer have to be a cable subscriber in order to watch any of their stellar programming. Not like you weren’t downloading it somewhere illegally, but at least now there’s an honest way to go about it. In tune with the growing popularity of online-only content like Netflix’s original series, an HBO Now subscription caters to the internet-watching generation—not to mention those of us who are too broke to afford cable television. But the question is, are you gonna spring for the $15/month, or just keep stealing HBO Go from your friends’ parents?
Convenience is certainly the name of the game, here: HBO Now will work on all iOS devices and web browsers (sorry, Android users and non-Mac laptop owners, you won’t be able to watch on your phones quite yet.) The service loads programs immediately as they become available on HBO proper, so not to worry about hearing any True Detective spoiler alerts from friends with cable TV.
Like any other premium service, HBO Now starts with a free trial, so you can binge-watch for free before making a commitment. But if you can’t get through every episode of Game of Thrones at the end of those 30 days, be ready to have your card automatically charged for the requisite subscription fee of $14.99/month.
There’s a FAQ page where you can get all of your other burning questions answered. But answer ours, first: were you ever really going to pay for an internet-friendly TV subscription? Or are you just going to cycle between parents’/friends’/friends’ parents passwords indefinitely, until one by one they report mysterious account activity and shut you out for good?
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I can definitely see paying for it -- or at least splitting it with a few friends -- but ONLY IF HBO drastically improves on the interface of the HBOgo site. For a media savvy premium cable, the browsing ability on that thing is some local broadcast TV level garbage.