If you happen to missed Insecure, a dramedy that ran for 5 seasons on HBO, you’re in luck: The entire present’s episodes are nonetheless out there on Max, the streaming service owned by Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD).

However for those who don’t subscribe to Max, you should still be in luck: Within the not-too-distant future, Insecure, together with different exhibits that ran on HBO, will most likely begin streaming on Netflix, HBO’s longtime rival, too.

Is {that a} symbolic, record-scratch second for the media enterprise, one which tells us rather a lot concerning the struggles the streaming world is going through after years of go-for-broke progress? Or one that appears much less dramatic when you dig into it?

Sure.

To spell that out: HBO, which has spent the final couple a long time carving out a status because the place to see ground-breaking TV you may’t discover wherever else, has additionally often made a few of its exhibits out there in different places. Years in the past, as an example, you would watch episodes of The Sopranos on A&E, a primary cable community. However the truth that it’s taking place now — and, crucially, the place it’s taking place — tells you numerous about WBD, HBO’s mum or dad firm, and the streaming panorama generally: Specifically, that the go-go days of the streaming growth are gone us, and that the businesses that survive this era are going to be extra sensible and fewer daring.

As first reported by Deadline, WBD is negotiating a deal to license some HBO exhibits to Netflix, an organization that first bought into making its personal programming 10 years in the past with an express purpose of constructing HBO-quality exhibits. Individuals conversant in the discussions inform me the deal isn’t finalized however that any titles that do find yourself making their technique to Netflix might be “library” exhibits, or ones which might be now not creating new episodes. My hunch is that HBO’s most well-known flagpole exhibits, like The Sopranos or Sport of Thrones, gained’t run on Netflix, both. Reps from WBD, HBO, and Netflix declined to remark.

A method to consider this deal is to match it to a different one HBO made with one other streamer. In 2014, HBO, then owned by Time Warner, struck a deal to license Ladies and different exhibits to Amazon for the retail big’s Amazon Prime Video service.

On the time, the deal appeared pretty easy. HBO, regardless of howls from tech-savvy clients, didn’t have its personal, standalone streaming service, so it didn’t see a lot draw back in placing some previous exhibits on another person’s streaming service. It could get a straightforward supply of income, plus the prospect to get HBO exhibits in entrance of people that didn’t subscribe to HBO, within the hope they’d finally change into HBO subscribers.

And, crucially, HBO administration didn’t think about Amazon Prime Video actual competitors for its subscribers, even if Amazon had a smattering of HBO-style exhibits, like Clear.

HBO additionally stored the deal in place — and finally renewed it — when it did launch its personal standalone streaming service, telling itself that the advertising and marketing upside was nonetheless price it. And HBO finally bought subscriptions instantly by means of Amazon’s retailer, giving it the flexibility to transform Amazon Prime clients into HBO clients with a pair clicks. (These offers went away when AT&T bought Time Warner, and new administration wished to take care of extra management over how their companies have been bought.)

The Netflix deal sounds comparable in some methods. HBO will license a few of its older exhibits however not any of its present hits. However not like Amazon, Apple, and YouTube, Netflix doesn’t provide a web-based video retailer, so there’s no mechanism to transform HBO watchers on Netflix into HBO subscribers.

Most significantly: It’s Netflix, the corporate that particularly set its sights on HBO when it bought into streaming. “The purpose is to change into HBO quicker than HBO can change into us,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos famously stated 10 years in the past. And all this comes years after TV executives all through the business realized they’d made a horrible mistake by promoting lots of their reruns to Netflix, in order that TV watchers have been skilled to look at exhibits like Breaking Dangerous on Netflix as an alternative of AMC, which initially aired them.

Which is why the information of the deal is producing tons of consideration within the media business — and producing dismay inside HBO, the place folks view it as an indication of weak point at mum or dad firm WBD. “Positively a response to determined circumstances,” one HBO insider informed me. “They’d promote something [to Netflix] if they might,” stated one other.

Why? Easy: Warner Bros. Discovery wants money. The corporate, assembled final yr when AT&T shrugged off the corporate that was once referred to as Time Warner and merged it with Discovery, ended up taking over tens of billions in debt within the transaction — its present tally is $50 billion. Since then, it has been attempting to persuade Wall Road that it will probably each minimize prices and discover new methods to earn cash from the stuff it makes and owns.

It has been struggling to make the case. It’s telling, as an example, that information of the Netflix-HBO deal has leaked the identical week that WBD has began one other spherical of layoffs, that are anticipated to proceed for weeks.

And WBD is certainly one of many media corporations that’s pulling again after spending years and billions of {dollars} attempting to change into The Subsequent Netflix — a high-growth streaming service that didn’t want to fret about income as a result of Wall Road cared about progress, not income. Now, Wall Road has modified its thoughts, which is why the likes of Disney — which made probably the most credible pursuit of Netflix — simply minimize 7,000 jobs.

So perhaps this might be one other pivot we see from a number of streamers sooner or later. It was once standard knowledge that the important thing to a profitable streamer was must-see content material you couldn’t get wherever else. However that was additionally when standard knowledge was that the important thing to success was rising as quick as you may and never worrying concerning the backside line. Possibly we’re headed for a extra promiscuous streaming period.