Rumor: Hulu To Require Paid TV Subscription Soon

[AstylahAthrys]

The whole point of Hulu for me is to avoid getting a cable subscription like the plague. I hate the watch on a schedule thing. I'm a busy person. I guess I can use my old email from my dad's cable company and use it, but, still, I don't like the principle of it at all.

 

[Callate]

Standard TV seems increasingly like a dying model. They've been forcing us to "bundle" channels for years, paying for content we don't want. It's virtually impossible to only get HBO if you just want to watch Game of Thrones, or only Comedy Central if you just want to watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (thankfully those are available independently through Comedy Central, at least for now.) In a digital age, there's no good consumer-side excuse for that- and if legal means of getting the content we want aren't available, well, the obvious alternative is clearly attractive to an awful lot of people.

Killing Hulu would be shooting itself in the foot in more ways than are immediately obvious, in other words.

 

[vxicepickxv]

If you own the company you're colluding with, that's not collusion. You can't engage in anti-competitive practices with yourself, because you were never competing in the first place.

You are correct. It is not collusion. It is in this case considered a horizontal monopoly without government approval, and it is in fact VERY illegal.

 

[BrownGaijin]

So they would charge you and still roll the ads? I call BS. An idea like this is like having people watching you cut your balls off. Sure you would have people throw some money, but eventually the cash flow is gonna stop, and the pain is going to be massive.

Plausible yes, but unlikely.

 

[weirdee]

The further the new caves to the old, the more we are dragged into the past, where the vultures maintain control, and ensure the survival of the monsters who feed off the universe just to survive, but not to LIVE. Our continued existence will only serve to remind us that we were unwilling to look beyond.

Or, y'know, we could just not use these services and live in chaos like we did in the 00s.

 

[Damien Granz]

I hadn't watched Tv or movies in almost a decade until last year due to Hulu and Netflix. If Hulu wants to make the service expensive, cool. It's no skin off my ass to go back to not watching. And I'm not even threating piracy.

 

[Treblaine]

Don't get mad, just don't pay. Capitalism is immune to rage but will crumble under the weight of withheld money.
PS: find out who their closest competitor is and buy their services instead.

 

[SanguineSymphony]

Hulu's a low value/low cost luxury item. If the corporation who owns the product chooses to over value it. I'll have no reason to keep it. They would have to offer a ton more content to increase their current subscription price.

And there is no amount of content they could tease me with to get me to become a cable subscriber again.

Didn't they say at one point they were going to be a direct competitor of Netflix? Given this change in philosophy I don't see how that seems feasible...

 

[Albino Boo]

So you're saying that only Hulu exists, there are no longer any other methods for distribution, or revenue streams?

16% of viewers now watch online rather than paying cable. So cable costs 100s and hulu nothing, no loss of revenue there then. When Hulu started streaming it was a bonus revenue, the numbers using didn't effect the subscription base. Now that significant numbers are using it instead of subscription is it surprising that cable companies move to stop the haemorrhage of income? Its not like the cable companies are refusing to stream it you just have to wait 1 week.

 

[RvLeshrac]

So you're saying that only Hulu exists, there are no longer any other methods for distribution, or revenue streams?

16% of viewers now watch online rather than paying cable. So cable costs 100s and hulu nothing, no loss of revenue there then. When Hulu started streaming it was a bonus revenue, the numbers using didn't effect the subscription base. Now that significant numbers are using it instead of subscription is it surprising that cable companies move to stop the haemorrhage of income? Its not like the cable companies are refusing to stream it you just have to wait 1 week.

I'm sorry, I clearly went the wrong route using by using words instead of funny pictures.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Because there's absolutely no other way you could ever find to grab those episodes.

Seriously, they can post them same-day and get ad revenue from us, or they can delay them and get nothing.

So your argument is sell it at loss or we steal it?

The money you pay the cable companies doesn't go towards the financing of the shows. At all. That's all paid for by their advertisers. Every single cent you pay the cable company goes to the cable company and nowhere else. That's why most cable channels still have commercials. The ones that don't are "premium" channels that have special arrangements with the cable companies to get a portion of the money you pay for them.

What I suspect is going on here is blackmail. The cable companies are threatening to drop the channels that also have a presence on Hulu unless Hulu agrees to this bogus arrangement.