Soon, You'll Have to Pay for Hulu

vengence said:
It'll work just as well as if YouTube tried to go from free to pay, as in not at all.

That being said, I would be more than willing to pay 50$ a month to be able to have access to a library of on-demand of every show and new show ever made and every movie ever made all on demand. I would also instantly cancel my cable.
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qft
 
BloodyIron said:
Part of the reason that cable tv is still kinda pricey is the infrastructure. A lot of it is still very expensive as it is not exactly high production, more of a medium to low production.

Considering this, the cable companies not only have to work out deals with the networks, they also have to maintain and upgrade their own distribution infrastructures. Sure, with some migrating to fibre optics it will cost less in the long term, but it is not quite there yet.


So what?

Well, hulu uses a significantly lower cost infrastructure: the internet. The internet costs a hell of a lot less to distribute data compared to say coaxial or aerial television (not even including HDTV or HDTV + HDCP).

Is the subscription option fair?

no

Why?

Because bandwidth is cheap.


Stick to your ads hulu.

Oh, and some day maybe you'll open your markets TO CANADA :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
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fail! i was so going to go with everything you wrote until i read youre CANADIAN! :mad:




j/k, eh? :D
 
Won't affect me too much. As the major networks provide it in a higher resolution streamed.

CBS does 1080p streaming, Fox I presume at least 720p, NBC is still behind the curve, but the point is the quality is still better than Hulu's 480p streaming.
 
Do not confuse sustained with subsidized. Add based video on demand can not be self sustained, it is subsidized by the networks to provide a service for the purchasers of market audiences. They could care less about us, their true customers are the ones paying. They didn't come up with hulu so people could watch shows they missed, they came up with hulu to gain revenue off the people who missed a show by providing the shows with adds. That in itself does not pay for the bandwith and business don't enjoy subsidizing products with other products. All lines of business should be self sufficient.
 
gia said:
Do not confuse sustained with subsidized. Add based video on demand can not be self sustained, it is subsidized by the networks to provide a service for the purchasers of market audiences. They could care less about us, their true customers are the ones paying. They didn't come up with hulu so people could watch shows they missed, they came up with hulu to gain revenue off the people who missed a show by providing the shows with adds. That in itself does not pay for the bandwith and business don't enjoy subsidizing products with other products. All lines of business should be self sufficient.
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i see your point, but the infrastructure is changing as earlier said. i dont think anyone here doubts that eventually cable tv will go away, and all tv will either come from the internet or OTA (or, when wimax hits mainstream, OTA internet TV). so even if hulu is just subsidized now, it doesnt mean it can't ever self sustain.
 
i can't wait until they cap services, charge for hulu, then the isp charges you for going over your bandwith limit due to hulu.
 
I just finished building a new HTPC and was wanting to check out Hulu. According to this comment from the co-owner of Hulu, I shouldn't even bother. Guess I missed my chance. :(
 
I won't pay HULU a dime. Most networks stream their shows on their sites anyways and the ones that don't...well...there are ways to watch them. I understand the need for commercials, I also understand my need not to pay for anything I don't like. So to each their own.
 
My requirements:

No less than 720p HD, 1080p preferred, and NO super-compressed bullshit either.
- TRUE on-demand selections. Not "what we feel like offering to you today" crap. Comcast at least has a movie here or there available for a reasonable amount of time. At Hulu, it seems like I find a great movie to watch today, I'll feel like seeing it two days later and now its not listed. Maybe I just have bad timing but that just seems to be my luck lately.
- I missed a show on TV due to work/errands/everyday bullshit - hey, I can just go to Hulu and see what i missed! This seems to already be there - KEEP IT, but PLEASE add more shows. Get the networks to stop being retarded about this.
- Keep the commercials short and sweet like you have it now. If it becomes like TV where we have ten minutes of commercials, I'm just going to watch TV instead.
- Legitimate early access - You want people to buy into a service for watching stuff, this will get people in EASILY. Early access to movies, new tv show seasons, etc. just give some early access to something people want to see.
 
Not bad if they only charge for the new stuff and keep the old stuff free and after a season add the newer contend.
 
Yeah sure can, google.com any show w season and episode followed by .tor. for instance lost s05e10 .tor. thank you google...silly riaa going after pirate bay...google is much easier.
 
gia said:
Yeah sure can, google.com any show w season and episode followed by .tor. for instance lost s05e10 .tor. thank you google...silly riaa going after pirate bay...google is much easier.
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Forgot the quote that was for azshar.
 
I would pay an inexpensive monthly fee to have a premium account on hulu if they managed to expand their collection more, as well as with the premium account, you didn't get any commercials and you had priority.
 
don't they mostly just link stuff from other sites? How can charge us for that? They better be getting a lot more content that's exclusive to their site...
 
I start downloading them again from bittorrent and then they wont get any money from advertising. Looks like they are going to screw hulu up, so sad.
 
Dan_D said:
Hulu is pretty awesome. It doesn't surprise me that they'd go to a subscription model at some point. I'll say this: As long as the prices are reasonable, it beats the shit out of Cable, FIOS, or U-Verse video on demand.
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Also, beats paying money for iTunes or whatever...their advertising is really unobtrusive, and much shorter than "normal" tv. I'll be a bit bummed out if they go to a pay model though. If they decide to do so, then they better go back to how it was when they first launched - FULL seasons of all the shows...I've noticed that recently they've started only having the most recent 8-10 shows for many things, probably due to worries of cannabalizing DVD sales.
 
Jutsu said:
don't they mostly just link stuff from other sites? How can charge us for that? They better be getting a lot more content that's exclusive to their site...
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No. They serve the stuff themselves. Only exceptions are stuff like ABC shows, they don't even play on the hulu site, those redirect you to ABC.
 
i am just against paying for tv in general. there are so many other ways to occupy yourself that are way more fun and cost nothing or very little. tv just isnt on my list of forms of entertainment worth paying for.
 
if Hulu had any movie/show ever and you could watch anytime you wanted, I would pay. Other than that torrenting is to easy :p
 
ekuest said:
i am just against paying for tv in general. there are so many other ways to occupy yourself that are way more fun and cost nothing or very little. tv just isnt on my list of forms of entertainment worth paying for.
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part of me agrees with that, and the other part of me know i dont watch crap on tv. i actually found a satellite package that doesn't have mtv, but has a ton of educational channels- i dont mind paying for that. also, sports alone for me is a reason to have some sort of cable
 
spacetrader said:
also, sports alone for me is a reason to have some sort of cable
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yuck. i absolutely hate watching other people play sports. i think im in the minority on this one though, so ill let you have that one. :) yeah i definitely would love to have discovery, history, and some other channels like that. not worth it though for all the other stuff you have to get.
 
With torrents and dvds, I don't miss whatever it is I want to watch. It's also so a nice illegal delicious dish. ;P
 
Azhar said:
Can anyone list a Hulu competitor we can check into if Hulu does this?
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cbs, abc, nbc, fox, usa they have their series showing on their site. southparkstudios.com has episodes of southpark.

IMDB has movies / shows on it.

youtube has some movies (legit) on it



One thing to keep in mind that this guy isn't the head of Hulu. He is the head of News Corp, which is one of the co-owners of hulu. On top of that he hasn't been to their meeting yet. He is just saying that he could see a day in which this might happen. Although this is just him talking out his ass as nobody else involved with hulu has said this is going to happen, nor have they even talked about it.
 
i could actually see them, and i would be in favor of it, charge for live streaming channels, while all the old content was free but ad supported like it is now. that would make them like a hybrid iptv and free dvr service...
 
jonathonball said:
I stopped watching Hulu when I got Blockbuster and then switched to Netflix; TV is soooooo much better on DVD. And if there is actually a recent show that I really really can't wait to catch up on, most of the networks stream from their sites now.

I have no need for Hulu.
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The Hulu streams are (mostly) the same ones that you'll find on NBC/Fox's site no? Since they're the people behind Hulu. Hulu just organizes it all more intelligently, but if Hulu went to a pay format then those sites would invariably follow suit, they're not gonna charge for their content on one place and not the other.

Regardless, the whole article is based on one guy's opinion (News Corp.'s new 'digital chief', ex-AOL) before he has even met w/the rest of the board/team. My guess is he won't last long. :p In all seriousness tho, he's got other theories and ideas, on what newspapers need to do for instance, that were briefly mentioned in the article...

They make sense to an extent, but I think it's very much a case of too little too late for most of them. I think the potential is there if the price is right though, 'specially if they keep expanding the content as they have. They could charge only for HD content for instance, a ton of enthusiasts would pay for it instead of cable. Or they could charge only for new content, I dunno.
 
why must everything good die soo quickly!!!
I never saw how they tv networks would be losing anything by playing re runs, i thought those 3 commercials i have to watch would pay for the operational costs.
 
HULU doesn't have enough content to even be in the running the charge.

If they getting way ahead of themselves. IP TV is a good decade away from being in a position to charge.
 
This is really not that surprising. There could be a demand if its cheap and their service and content is good enough. But as always when free service is gone, they're gonna loose a lot of users this way.
 
why pay? when it already has commercials? The whole point of hulu initially was to give users another option, a free legal option over torrents and other P2P.

Greed ruins everything.
 
ekuest said:
yuck. i absolutely hate watching other people play sports. i think im in the minority on this one though, so ill let you have that one. :) yeah i definitely would love to have discovery, history, and some other channels like that. not worth it though for all the other stuff you have to get.
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check out dish network's bronze hdtv package then. they did increase their prices, its not $29 like i was spending... but for $36 after everything you get a good share of informative channels in high def, plus comedy central and spiketv. i swear its a 'single dad' package, as there is no vh1, mtv or any kind of crap like that. it does have disney and toon channels too for kids... basically comes with everything your girlfriend wouldnt want to watch :D
 
Hulu is going to go out of business most likely. I wouldn't mind having tons of ads on the sides. Maybe if they offered HD content in 1080p it would be alright but it has to be like 1-2 dollars a month.
 
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