In the television landscape, HBO is undoubtedly a giant — one so formidable that even the global behemoth Netflix has to grit its teeth and push itself to the limit to compete. Just start with "The Sopranos" and "Game of Thrones" and end with "The White Lotus" and "Succession" — the cultural punch of these and dozens of other series is beyond dispute. But haven't we already been able to watch these shows in Estonia for quite some time? So why do we need HBO Max?

That's where things start to get murky. At least on paper, the difference should be quite simple: HBO, which has existed as a linear television network since the 1960s, stands in contrast to HBO Max, a very young streaming platform created just months after our own Jupiter. HBO Max combines the catalog of its parent company Warner, HBO's selection of series and content created exclusively for the platform.

In reality, however, most of this content has long been available in Estonia. In fact, telecom company Telia has for years been providing local consumers with both HBO and most of HBO Max's original material. And they still do, regardless of the new platform — though it will soon be integrated into their system as well. True, the competition is opening up and the monopoly is over, but for viewers interested in series, very little will actually change.

That's not exactly the strongest starting point for one of America's most significant streaming platforms to enter a new market. Unlike Disney+ or Apple TV+, which truly opened the door to entirely new audiovisual worlds when they launched in Estonia, here the pitch to local consumers seems to be: get HBO Max, you need it. My advice? Measure nine times and then maybe don't cut at all — there just isn't that much value waiting for you.

The issue here isn't necessarily that HBO Max is a poor platform — it's not — but rather the patchwork of distribution rights in Estonia and many other small countries, which severely limits the diversity these platforms can offer. The same problem has plagued Amazon Prime and the auteur-focused Mubi for years. And truthfully, Netflix's selection has also gotten worse year after year — unless you're really into low-tier Indian cinema.

By contrast, in the United Kingdom, Amazon Prime aggregates a wide range of platforms and offers access to a rich collection of both historical and contemporary films. In Estonia, a film buff might occasionally find something interesting, but apart from new series, there's little reason to stick around. With Mubi, just look across the Gulf of Finland to see that while we're served mostly obscure world cinema, Finland gets true auteur classics from both sides of the Atlantic.

So what does HBO Max have to offer? I can already picture the executives puffing out their chests and proudly saying, "But we have 'Friends'! Watch the new Minecraft movie at home! The entire Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings collections are available! And Dune too!" Sorry, but I yawned so hard at that my jaw started hurting. How long can you hold on to a customer with a selection of recent blockbusters? A month? Two? After that, even the die-hard fans who like to rewatch their favorites dozens of times will probably start scratching their heads.

A quick glance shows that in the U.S., HBO Max also features things like Michael Curtiz's legendary "Casablanca," Jim Jarmusch's excellent "Ghost Dog" and Brady Corbet's award-winning "The Brutalist." These are random examples, but they highlight a broader issue that affects most streaming platforms in this far-flung corner of the world. We're offered what seems like a vast and colorful selection, but once you scroll past the flashy home screen, you quickly realize you're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. The bulk of the legacy content remains legally inaccessible.

So while it's one thing to cheer that Estonia has earned another pin on the map of an American corporate giant, it's quite another to see how easily they expect to pull money from our wallets. I sincerely hope that in the coming years, instead of just introducing yet another new platform costing ten euros a month, the content libraries of those that already exist will grow richer — especially when it comes to film heritage. If that doesn't happen, then soon enough, new generations might forget that films were actually made before the 21st century...

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