HBO Max likely launching in AU by 2025, Spotify's CEO has another jab at Google & Apple, Counter-Strike 2 is out

• The boss of streaming at the parent company of HBO, newly merged Warner Bros Discovery, let loose at a conference that HBO Max might expand to Austraila in 2025, which also happens to be the year its deal with Foxtel runs out. RIP Binge, access to HBO content is the only reason anyone subscribes.
• Spotify's CEO is in the UK to lobby for the Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumers Bill and while there he had a little chat to the Financial Times, dropping this presumably workshopped zinger - "if you want to be the referee you can't also be the player", referring to Apple and Google unfairly competing with developers on their own platforms.
• Counter-Strike 2 was released last week, replacing the incredibly popular CS:GO on Steam - literally, as it uses the same listing on Steam as CS:GO and overwrites CS:GO when installed. 17 year old me would have gone apeshit over this and would have skipped school for a solid week to go play it at the internet cafe a few blocks away (why did they put it so close to the school?!) with all the other reprobates.