It might be safe to say that sharing HBO Go accounts is common these days, just like Netflix. It also turns out that HBO’s CEO, Richard Plepler, doesn’t mind at all. In fact, HBO’s top executive is well aware of the practice and even sees it as a good thing rather than an issue:

“It presents the brand to more and more people and gives them an opportunity, hopefully, to become addicted to it. What we’re in the business of is building addicts, building video addicts — and the way we do that is exposing our product and our shows and our brand to more and more people.”

While HBO still doesn’t offer the internet-only subscription that many have been clamoring for, it’s a good move by the company to allow the company’s content to be consumed by as many people as possible. Because of Netflix’s massive growth and success, this isn’t enough to shoot HBO Go to the top and HBO will probably still need to give access to HBO Go without a cable subscription for the service to gain real traction. But for now at least, just keep sharing those passwords. Someone want to give me theirs?

[via BuzzFeed, The Verge]