Paying for Hulu?

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Permalink Reply by Madness Mark on October 26, 2009 at 8:59pm

I think their aim with paid accounts (at least, I'd assume) is that they would be ad free. Otherwise there would be no reason to pay.

What Hulu fails to realize is that most of their content is available on other legit sites like YouTube and the distributor's websites (cbs.com, adultswim.com, nbc.com, amc.com, syfy.com, etc.). So if you want people to PAY for something they legally watch FREE on another site, you better be offering up more than just ad-free content.

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Permalink Reply by Alter_Ego on October 26, 2009 at 11:06pm

Commercial revenue has gone down, however, due to the advent of DVRs, which enable the audience to skip the commercials.

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Permalink Reply by Cybersoldier on October 26, 2009 at 7:21pm

I read someplace it was owed by news corp, and they were thinking about charging for online versions of their papers like the wall street journal. The only thing this is going to do is bring back like to vcrs, tivos, and dvdrs. I rarely use it but it comes in handy when I'm catching up with heroes, and other shows I tend to miss on tv. If this happens I'll add the shows to my netflix. More commercials on hulu is a bit more acceptable, but to charge online when you can get it for free on television where is the logic.

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Permalink Reply by Everwen on October 26, 2009 at 11:25pm

If you think about, content on TV isn't really free, considering you have to pay for the cable service, or the Netflix etc.

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Permalink Reply by Solid Snake on October 26, 2009 at 8:25pm

FUCK HULU

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Permalink Reply by Alter_Ego on October 26, 2009 at 9:01pm

I hate to break it to you guys, but the free-advertisement based approach to the internet is not profitable to the CREATORS of the content (as opposed to the DISTRIBUTORS), which is why they are doing this. The fact is that fifteen years (or so) ago we were still an industrial society and the internet was just a means by which we could easily access free information to help run that industrial complex. But now, we're a post-industrial society where information itself has become one of our chief commodities, so it only seems natural that we would inevitably start looking for ways to profit from the sales and distribution of information. Personally, I think this is a good thing (and I know Carlyle will probably hate me for this), because if our society is going to have an information-based economy we need it to run on a economic system that actually makes money. It's the only way we are going to progress into the information age.

Advertising may be enough to pay for the distribution of digital information, but it doesn't pay the creators of the content. Ten years ago (before file sharing, Web 2.0, digital downloading, and streaming got popular) we were still using a lot of industrial materials to distribute digital information (DVDs, VHS, CDs, etc.) and when you bought those things the people who created that information got a cut of the profits, and there wasn't much threat of someone illegally copying and distributing that information on a massive scale because to do so one would need those same industrial materials to replicate it. But now that we have digital downloading, we no longer need those materials to distribute information, and this creates problems because now people think that just because it doesn't cost anything to distribute information on a massive scale they have a right to view it and share it as they please, with complete disregard to the fact that in doing so they are depriving the creators of any rightful compensation.

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Permalink Reply by Madness Mark on October 26, 2009 at 9:16pm

If they want to make more money to become a better producer and attractive site for distributors, that's fine, but they got to realize they'll be jumping into a whole new arena with tougher competition. Their biggest challenger is Netflix who offers both streaming content and mailed DVDs. So if Hulu really wants to attract viewers with paid accounts they'll either charge a small amount, offer up more content than Netflix, or break into the DVDs by mail business. If they don't do any of these, they'll lose all their viewers to Netflix.

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Permalink Reply by Alter_Ego on October 26, 2009 at 11:07pm

Most likely, yes.

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Permalink Reply by Everwen on October 26, 2009 at 11:36pm

You make compelling points Alter_Ego, and it really was inevitable that Hulu would had to start pricing some of it's content at least.

And I know some of you think people won't pay for something they have been getting for free, and in some other time I would had agreed, but I would invite you to read the story of this little site called Crunchyroll, a site that is still going on despite charging most of it's content.

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Permalink Reply by Alter_Ego on October 27, 2009 at 12:35am

I'd like to make the point that I don't think EVERYTHING on the internet will cost money, because that would be rediculous. I think we're just going to have to separate the creative content from the user-generated content. The difference is creative content would be information that actually belongs to people as their intellectual property, could be consumed as though it were a commcercial product, and would therefore have monetary value (i.e. movies, TV shows, music, video games, e-books, newspapers and magazines) whereas user-generated content is created for the purpose of interaction and participation of its users (YouTube, social networking sites, Twitter, blogs, Spill.com) whose ideas, opinions and activities do not have monetary value.

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