Netflix must be really laughing its ass off right now, as everyone trying to watch the season finale of True Detective complain about HBO GO not being available. HBO GO has crashed—it's been deader than Rust Cohle's soul for the last three hours.
I've tried it at least two dozen times—both through my computer and Apple TV—and it hangs every single time. In fact, most of the times I couldn't even access the service's home screen.
We all know that HBO GO's reliability track record is pretty pathetic to start with, so maybe we shouldn't be surprised. However, they should have imagined that the widespread interest for True Detective would cause a demand surge for the finale and could have done something to avoid the disaster.
HBO, you need to change ASAP or die
This dramatically contrasts with Netflix's success in surviving the House of Cards season 2 tsunami, when a gazillion billion users hit the online video provider at the same time demanding their fix for not one but 13 new episodes of Frank Underwood's evil doings. Aside from a few hiccups that resulted in low res video quality, it worked pretty flawlessly.
If HBO wants to compete with Netflix, they should really revamp their online streaming service as soon as possible. Otherwise they risk becoming the next Blockbuster Video. It's inexcusable to offer this kind of streaming service in this day and age. Especially when Netflix costs $8 a month and HBO GO is $15 to $20, depending on your cable carrier. Oh yeah, that's another one: It's 2014 and you can only have HBO GO if you have a cable carrier. These guys must suicidal in addition of being absolutely inept.
Here's a collection of the many images posted in Twitter.
And some tweets: