When the New York Times reported earlier this week on a meeting between HBO employees and one of their new overlords at AT&T, the story had all the indicia of corporate greed run amok.

AT&T executive John Stankey, now the head of Warner Media following AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner, reportedly told HBO employees to expect a "tough year" as the venerable network changed direction. Getting "more hours of engagement" would become a priority, Stankey said, because more engagement means "more data and information about a customer that then allows you to do things like monetize through alternate models of advertising as well as subscriptions." When Richard Plepler, HBO's chief executive, pointed out that the network already makes money, Stankey agreed, but added, "Just not enough."

Observers pounced on the report as a sign that AT&T would ruin HBO by pushing quantity over quality. Gizmodo's Rhett Jones bemoaned the possibility of "turning the carefully curated, profitable, and beloved HBO into a big-data monster like Netflix." The Atlantic's David Sims perceived Stankey's comments as a threat to HBO's "prestige" sensibility, perhaps bringing about "the end of HBO as we know it." Headlines abound with the possibility that HBO was headed toward ruin.

Let's briefly set aside the possibility that that the Times' report didn't capture the full context of Stankey's remarks, as Recode's Peter Kafka argued after hearing the meeting audio himself. The AT&T exec has a point: HBO should be more engaging than it is now, not just for AT&T's benefit, but for the benefit of HBO's subscribers.