1. Doom Patrol only got renewed in a split deal with HBO Max.
  2. Swamp Thing got cancelled because the taxes were too high for projected profits.
  3. Harley Quinn episodes are being released on YouTube after the DCU debut.
  4. Stargirl will now air on The CW a day after DCU.

Yet they (the guys running DCU's twitter anyways) are still trying to push the narrative that HBO Max is a "friend", and that DC Universe is just fine. I'm guessing it's because they can't just say "Oh no, we're getting shut down but we can't officially talk about it yet."

Not even Marvel, at what is currently the top of their game, dared to make their own Marvel streaming service. They knew it was best to wait until Disney+, to launch alongside a broad range of content and appeal to the widest possible audience, rather than be standalone. Because one brand of one genre just doesn't cut it. Furthermore, DC Universe is actually worse at being a DC hub than what HBO Max is shaping up to be. Figure that one. HBO Max will have DCEU, Arrowverse, Watchmen, Joker, probably Pennyworth, likely all the shows DCU already has, AND will have exclusive shows that DCU doesn't have starting with Green Lantern and Strange Adventures.

Another flaw with DC Universe is the sheer lack of original content. Even forgiving the points made above, don't forget that DCU can only keep one show going at a time, and only six were announced for it to last a year. It took another year just to get the announcement of one new show (BizarroTV). That's pathetic, and it's also bad for your customers. Streamers rely on a steady flow of content, and it's asinine to only have one show at a time with no talk of new content.

I mean, HBO Max hasn't even come out yet, and the number of originals announced just blows DCU out of the water.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ted_by_HBO_Max

I've seen discussion of this elsewhere, a popular opinion even among DC fans is that DC Universe is basically just a money sink that's not worth investing in at this point. The popular idea is to simply fold DCU into Max. In fact, many are very meh of DCU. When your service made for die hard fans gets lukewarm reception by said die hard fans, there's a problem.

That's for good reason: DC Universe is a bad value. It's $8 a month just to get a smaller selection of comics than what you can find on Comixology, a collection shows and movies you can find elsewhere, a forum (which you can access anywhere, and there are many DC forums around the web anyways), and less DC content than the upcoming HBO Max. It's more expensive than Disney+, and that's ludicrous. Many have already cancelled, or are preparing to cancel, for when Max launches. I bet when it officially launches, DC Universe is going to see a mass exodus of their already small subscriber number, who decided to move to the much better service.

Speaking of which...

DCU sticking around wouldn't be an issue if it was successful. Everything indicates it isn't. The service is niche, it's only in the US, it's not available on all platforms (in fact, the Xbox One is the only platform besides PC/mobile that supports it and that came way later), and as such the amount of people actively paying for it don't amount to much especially for originals. It's an albatross around their necks, and it never should've supported original content. They absolutely jumped the gun with this service, and they should've just waited until HBO Max launched. It was great getting Young Justice back sooner, but overall it was a bad decision.

I can see it sticking around as a comic app, it's one real advantage. However, it's completely useless to try to keep it a streamer. I did want this to succeed, but it didn't. I held a sub once, but it wasn't worth the money. I'd rather wait to get more bang for my buck out of one big kickass service, than continuing to get a small amount of content from a so-so one. I feel like the clock will really be ticking after the HBO Max launch. Give it a year, two tops, and it's unlikely to remain its own platform. All the shows, including Titans and Young Justice, will probably make the full migration to being Max Originals. The reason being that keeping them exclusive to the ultra-niche DC Universe app instead of putting them on the main focus platform of all of Warner with an infinitely wider reach going forward would be beyond stupid.

Really, there's no harm in just folding everything over to Max. I doubt anyone will miss it. The fact that they're airing Stargirl on the CW and releasing Harley Quinn on YouTube for free with no backlash is proof enough that the audience isn't really there.

So what do you think, should they just fold all shows into HBO Max and make it a comics-only site? That's the best way to do it in my opinion.