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Hulu To Require Viewers To Have Cable Subscriptions
The NY Post reports that Hulu, the video streaming service with over 30 million users, has plans to force those users to prove they have a subscription to cable or satellite TV if they want to keep watching. Quoting:
"The move toward authentication is fueled by cable companies and networks looking to protect and profit from their content. The effort comes as entertainment companies continue to face drastic shifts in home viewing habits. Overall spending on home entertainment edged up 2.5 percent to $4.45 billion in the first quarter as a surge in digital streaming — which rose more than fivefold to $549 million — offset a continuing collapse in video rentals, according to Digital Entertainment Group. ... Hulu racked up some $420 million in ad revenue last year and is expected to do well in this year’s ad negotiations. But the move toward authentication, which could take years to complete, will make cable companies happy because it could slow cord-cutting by making cable subscribing more attractive."
USENET it is.
Hulu hemmorages customers after initial roll-out of authentication scheme.
Of all the options available, the one we hate the most and absolutely will not do under any circumstances is give the consumers what they actually want and will happily pay for.
This doesn't make cable subscriptions more attractive.
All it does is make hulu less attractive than it already is.
Fuck that.
Good luck with that Hulu. What's next, is CNN.com going to force me to prove I have cable before reading their site? Hulu, people gladly watch your content with ads and you buckled to the cable providers, torpedoing your independence.
It won't slow "cord cutting" to make cable subscriptions more attractive, it'll just lead to people not using Hulu,
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
I will cancel and not look back. Thanks Hulu, for making sure I will use bittorrent to get my content.
Totally not related to those same ISPs moving to cut people off from the internet with some special new method of piracy detection and enforcement that is extrajudicial... and being implimented only a few months from now.
It's not like this is coordinated or anything. Collusion doesn't exist. Enhance your calm, Citizen.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Just when you think even some branch of the industry gets it, they demonstrate they don't. It's hard to think of an industry more dedicated towards giving customers what they don't want, and doing everything in their power to make sure that more money slips through their fingers.
You see, Congress, this is what happens when you try to legislate an extinct business model back to health. You don't get better companies, you don't protect jobs or an industry, you just get lazy, stupid dinosaurs who continue to fecklessly drive towards the chasm.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
They do realize that people use Hulu because they do not want to buy cable at home.
It's pretty simple.
I know a lot of people who pay for Hulu and would probably pay more.
But they won't buy cable to watch Hulu. Not a chance. They'll take their business elsewhere.
Oh, well. If they are strict about this authentication, a number of people will simply find a new competitor of theirs. No big loss (except to the cable companies)
People use Hulu because I don't have cable. Isn't that the point?
The move toward authentication is fueled by cable companies and networks looking to protect and profit from their content.
It seems that allowing cable companies to purchase content providers wasn't a good idea after all. Oh wait, that's what everyone except the FCC said already.
To read an online magazine, you must also have a snail mail subscription?
There's nothing about this that makes any sense. It's stupid, ultimately self-destructive and only proves that the big media companies don't get it, and likely never will.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
We are really starting to reap the rewards of allowing content and distribution to merge together.
My webcomic
Everyone else on the net seems to point to the article in the NY Post (not exactly known for its careful fact-checking) and the Post article talks about Hulu 'taking its first steps' without a single mention of what those steps are. No other news stories I can find in the last several days talk about any changes occurring to Hulu's model (other than more original programming) or the Hulu user experience. So what the hell is the Post talking about, exactly? What evidence is there — beyond some editorial negative-wishcasting — that anything like this is going on?
If there is not a lawful competitor, it will be an illegal competitor.
That's how the market works, really.
A very small segment of people are *really* that worried about the legality of copyright enforcement, unless the penalties are sufficiently draconian and enforcement is sufficiently publicized so they hear about it on a weekly basis. They're trying hard (the media companies) to make that reality, but you can't simply legislate that people buy some stupid wire in order to do some unrelated task. It's inane and everyone realizes that, which makes the likelihood of this "enforcement' succeeding close to nil, in my opinion.
"Federally Sanctioned Media Provider" I hate to be that guy, but what exactly do you think OTA TV is?
P.S. i run Tivo + antenna too.
Good-bye
They just...can't...give...up...trying to turn the internet into television.
expandfairuse.org
's stupid, ultimately self-destructive and only proves that the big media companies don't get it, and likely never will.
It will be an interesting case study of whether capitalism still works in America. If capitalism works, we'll be saying "the former big media companies didn't get it, and that's why we have this new set of big media companies". If capitalism fails, there will be bail-outs. I'm not sure which way I would bet these days.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Hulu is getting harassed by the studios so they're either going to have to jack up their prices, eliminate content, or do something like proving you already pay.
Harassed by the studios? They ARE the fucking studios!
Hulu is wholly owned by NBCUniversal (who are 51% owned by Comcast), Fox, and Disney.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
I would consider the current copyright laws and the ones that they keep drafting and trying to push through every which way amount to a bailout. Rather than forcing the big media companies to compete, legislators are trying to build a wall around them.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Nothing will ever get me to subscribe to cable again guys.
Not even if a DOCSIS ISP were to bundle a free TV subscription with all home Internet plans? The "line fees" that DOCSIS and DSL ISPs charge for not bundling the ISP's other services are close to this.
So your advice is for Netflix to commit corporate suicide by failing to hire lobbyists of their own? Once your company reaches a certain size, non-engagement with the political system is very dangerous, and arguably a breach of fiduciary duty to shareholders. It's pretty clear that "competition" in the US these days is determined by whoever writes the biggest checks to the most influential Congressmen.
Even Microsoft had to learn that the hard way, when Novell, Netscape, and other doomed incumbents went crying to Uncle Sam. The nature of government is to expand and metastasize quickly enough to catch people like Bill Gates off guard. Reed Hastings may be a tone-deaf nitwit in some ways, but as an MSFT board member he would not have missed this lesson.
Unfortunately, trying to to stay out of the game is no longer feasible. Netflix has to become politically active, because they depend on the same cable companies who are behind this load of horse shit.
That's like requiring all bus-pass purchasers to prove that they own an insured vehicle.
Bow before me, for I am root.
Oh yeah, it was when you needed to prove you owned a horse before you could buy an automobile.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
This is going off topic, but if you hate cable companies and their greedy shitty ways (as I do...) then why do you have a favorite team?
I was an NFL fan but got tired of all of the political propaganda (it's there.) But mostly I just decided that I didn't need to support a millionaire or billionaire who just got taxpayers to build him a $250 million dollar stadium with tax funds so that the taxpayers that bought it and gave it to him can pay him $150 to get IN to their stadium to watch a game.
What a racket.
I guess there are some exceptions (Green Bay Packers perhaps?)
Sports teams have been turned into a brand just as much as Pepsi is, and their games are their commercials.
I LIKED football and that's what turned me off, the game is ruined.
This space available.
Did you consider that Netflix is not the problem, it's the asinite ludicrously expensive bandwidth metering?