Hulu will (likely) Start Charging in 2010, So What?
by daniel on Nov.16, 2009, under Journal
Word is that Hulu, the popular free video streaming site that delivers juicy syndicated goodness to millions of viewers daily, will likely switch over to a paid-only subscription service in 2010. Dates are unclear at this point but Hulu’s partner’s (News Corp.) exec Robert Murdock states:
“Are we looking at it with a view of adding subscription services in there and pay-per-view movies? Yes, we are looking at that. No decision has been taken yet.”
My personal favorite shows include: Family Guy, American Dad, King of the Hill, Simpsons, Naruto and a handful of others. Currently Hulu will only air these series’ past half-dozen or so episodes which really makes Hulu a bit boring for me after a while. I can remember in 2007 when Hulu didn’t have either the ads that currently plague every episode or the episode restriction that is currently in effect. After a while everyone saw the ads coming, but does Hulu really expect people to pony up a probable $10+ a month for something that will likely still have ads and likely still have episode restrictions? They should take a clue from the media distribution currently used by Microsoft’s Zune where a user pays $14.99 a month for unlimited, unrestricted access to every song on the planet, and every month you get to download 10 songs and keep them without DRM (digital rights management). That my friends is value. It’s a wonder why more people that actually like music don’t own Zunes. Hulu, get a clue, bait and switch won’t work on this generation when we can BitTorrent an entire season in hours or netflix and copy virtually anything we want INCLUDING movies.
What do you think?
