That isn't at all what was happening. AT&T wanted a giant streaming service that could appeal to everyone. HBO Max was built from the ground up with a more diverse set of executives and producers than HBO the cable channel. But when AT&T spun off Warner to Discovery, they also spun off over forty billion dollars of debt. Discovery management immediately started cutting across the board, including plenty of content that could have kept going if the new company's financials weren't in such dire shape. The cuts at HBO Max fell hardest on the culturally diverse side of the executives and the programming.

HBO Max's old mission was to be an all-audience first-rate streaming service similar to Disney/Hulu, Netflix, maybe Amazon Prime. They did very well at building that audience when they launched. The new mission is a lot less ambitious, a lot less diverse, and a lot more budget conscious than before. Whether or not it works out in the long run, they are likely to miss out on the opportunity to establish themselves as the undisputed leader of streaming services among today's competition.