Rumors of Hulu's Subscription Plans

whychevron found a story discussing Hulu's plan to offer subscriptions. The rumor is that $10 a month will grant paying users the ability to get episodes older than the last five, while the current five episodes remain ad-supported. This starts pitting Hulu even more squarely against iTunes for anyone who watches more than a few shows a month.

Comments

I'd pay it

[FredFredrickson]

I'd pay for it - if they stopped being dicks.

That means, if I could watch it on my xbox 360 (either official support, or they stop playing cat and mouse with playon.) and put support for hulu on the roku.

Ever since the last update, playon has had to do a screen capture instead of decrypting the original stream. That gets far less performance and kills my server.

Also I have to point out that the article mistakenly compares paying $10 for hulu (on demand) vs just watching it on "tv for free". I wonder if the author of the article still lives in his mom's basement.

Re:I'd pay it

[MBGMorden]

That's about where I'm at on it too. I like the idea of Hulu, but I simply don't want to watch TV sitting at my computer monitor. In the past I've kept a regular computer hooked to the TV and just used the regular interface to pull stuff up, but it's just gotten frustrating to keep a mouse and keyboard by the TV. If they can't integrate it into something I can use with a remote (Windows Media Center, MythTV, Xbox 360, anything), then I'm just not bothering. I'm ESPECIALLY not subscribing.

It's a shame though. If they managed to partner with some of these services I'd happily pay $10 a month for it. It beats the heck out of a $60 per month satellite bill.

Re:I'd pay it

[Anonymous Coward]

Note: I work for a telecom regulatory body in Canada.

Hulu is being blocked at every turn. Certain companies in Canada are attempting to stop Hulu from entering the market.

Why not try a proxy? I run a private proxy on one of my servers based in the U.S.

Re:I'd pay it

[slaker]

I thought it was totally sweet that Hulu worked under Skyfire on my phone. For the couple weeks that I could do that. I listened to two weeks worth of the Daily Show (also not on Hulu any more) during a long-ish car trip and it was fantastic.

I would expect to see device support, just like Netflix has added device support, for paying customers. We don't all have a PC in our living room to best leverage Netflix (I do and I'm sure a lot of other Slashdotters do too, but probably a lot more people have an Xbox or something).

Also, it kind of sucks that with a 70Mbit connection to the internet at home, hulu can't reliably deliver 480p streaming content to me. I expect that would need to change for paying subscribers, too.

Re:I'd pay it

[causality]

I use Boxee in this case as there is some integration made for Hulu. Problem I see with Hulu is the limited number of shows (incomplete full seasons).

I wish they'd delete every 4-minute "excerpt" clip and use the space to host more complete episodes, myself. I never knew that brief clips from the middle of a show with little or no context were so popular, yet they are a large amount of the offerings on Hulu and a *majority* of the available videos on Adultswim.com.

Re:I'd pay it

[Anonymous Coward]

WHY? Why would you pay for something that is literally free in 50 others places, licensed and ready to go. www.spreety.com, www.fancast.com, their are many others.

Hulu is making a major mistake and while I actually dont mind this particular model over what was originally discussed (Fully fee driven) It, just like there marketing with a "$25,000 minimum monthly spend" per advertiser is presumptuous and shows there disconnect from their users.

I have been a business person for a very long time, I have run a couple companies the size of HULU, with many of the same advantages to the market. All of them turned an honest, long term profit without killing the user who is already broke.

The PAY For content method will not work. These companies are cutting their long term success short.

Cheaper and better than cable

[Enderandrew]

For some people this really is a great alternative to cable.

It might even be better for networks. Fox said they make more money from Hulu on Simpsons episodes than they do from airing them on TV. And that was before this subscription revenue model existed.

If it wasn't for sports, I'd consider canceling cable/sattelite and just watching content via the internet.

Re:Meh.

[PhreakOfTime]

I find it fascinating that after the business model that you just described, that you still want to give these people money.

Re:No more buffering???

[__aasqbs9791]

What time do you find the most difficult? I've yet to see a this buffering problem so I'm guess it must be the times I watch, but since I tend to watch in the morning and early afternoon. But I've watched at other times and haven't seen a problem then, either, so maybe it is regional?

Re:Ads

[Anonymous Coward]

..and for $10/month how about the ability to download things for offline viewing?
..or the ability to view from mobile devices (ya know, like their advertising claims)?

64-bit flash

[Kev Vance]

Meanwhile, Hulu hasn't worked with the 64-bit flash plugin since January...

Re:Ads

[mcrbids]

Sorry, but if I became a paying subscriber I would expect ad free viewing on all content.

Remember when that was the deal with Cable TV? Maybe not, but I do. The more things change, the more they stay the same.... (sigh)

Re:About time!

[mcgrew]

just as you pay for cable / satellite and they still have commercials.

I first got cable in 1980 when I moved to Florida, and it was great. Ten channels including Discovery (which didn't suck back then, they actually had shows about science), CNN, A&E, empty-v, ESPN, etc. plus the local channels. HBO was included, and it only cost ten bucks a month, and the only commercials were on the local channels, none on the cable channels. They didn't censor movies. There was no annoying network logo at the bottom right of the screen.

I see Hulu and NetFlix being the same as cable is now in another 30 years' time; that is, if they survive.