Hulu Lowers Prices After Netflix Raises Theirs (variety.com)

Coincidentally, as Netflix raised their prices last week, Hulu decided to lower theirs. The streaming service is now offering a plan, which includes commercials, for $5.99 per month for the first year -- a short-term promotion aimed at luring new subs with the kickoff of the fall television and Hulu's expanded TV library lineup. Variety reports: Hulu's special offer for the limited-commercials plan is available through Jan. 9, 2018, only to new or returning Hulu subs. After one year, the regular $7.99 monthly price will kick in. Hulu offers a commercial-free option for $12 per month, and a live TV service (which includes access to original series like Emmy-winning "The Handmaid's Tale" and on-demand titles) for $40 monthly. A Hulu rep said the company's new promo is intended to draft off the fall 2017 TV season. As it looks for another original series on the order of "Handmaid's Tale" -- so far its only breakout hit -- Hulu has inked deals to bring thousands of current and older TV shows to the platform to armor-up in its battle with rivals Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Comments

Lower?

[Quirkz]

I'm sorry, but "new promotional rates" is not lowering prices.

1. It doesn't reduce anything for anyone who is already paying.
2. It's a promotional rate. The regular rate is the same.

So, it's a temporary sale to lure in new subscribers. That's different.

Re:Lower?

[DontBeAMoran]

Lowering prices means lower prices for everyone. That is clearing not the case here.

Re:Lower?

[JackieBrown]

You know, there are a ton of Trump stories on slashdot without forcing this discussion to become a Trump one.

Re:Lower?

[JohnFen]

No, Quirkz is correct: a temporary promotional price is not a "lowered price" in the commonly understood sense. It's a "sale price".

Re:Lower?

[rtb61]

I don't understand people who pay for commercial, pay for someone to enter their lounge room and scream at them about shit they don't want. Once you start going largely commercial free, those commercial when you occasionally come across, come across as extremely aggressive and loud, hugely undesirable and really put you off products. There are products they I totally avoid as a result of aggressive commercial placement and a very loud and aggravating style. If people behaved like commercial did, wander into your house to demand you buy product, would you tolerate it or would you throw them out. I can not understand why people think they will be able to sell me product by actively trying to force me to watch their POS commercials. Every time I buy stuff, I check other people's NEGATIVE opinions an reviews of the product, fuck you commercials, you live or die on how badly you have treated existing customers, that is it.

Re:Lower?

[Maxo-Texas]

They only lowered prices for new customers and only for 12 months.

Saying they "lowered prices" is grossly incorrect because all existing customers will not see a lowered rate.

Hey, bread's been lowered from $2 to $1.

Okay, I want some.

Oh-- it's $2 for you.

But you lowered prices?!?!

Yes- but not for you.

Re:Lower?

[squiggleslash]

You can't add words to something and then say it means the same thing,

Unless those words are implied. If there are no qualifications on the sentence, then the implication was, actually, that the prices were lowered for everyone (or at least every customer buying the products affected.)

What you're saying by saying "We're lowering prices for everyone" isn't the same as "We're lowering prices" is that "We're lowering prices" is the same as "We're lowering prices, but only for a small set of people."

Seems only fair

[PopeRatzo]

which includes commercials, for $5.99 per month for the first year

I pay $5.99 for the privilege of watching your commercials?

Tell you what, I'll sign up when the CEO of Hulu comes and sucks my hairy balls. And I'll only charge him $5.99 and he has to listen to me talk about my fantasy football team and the cute thing my cat did. For three hours. While he sucks my hairy balls.

Honestly, the cheek of these bastards. Do they not know how the whole idea of "commercials" works?

Re: Seems only fair

[markdavis]

>"It's exactly the same as the cable companies do..."

No it isn't, not even close. With cable, anyone with any brain uses a DVR (I use a TiVo) and skips the commercials. Streaming, on the other hand, can FORCE commercial viewing, and that is exactly what Hulu does- forced commercials.

And with cable/DVR, you can record what you want for later viewing, and without a live Internet connection. Streaming video and your Internet goes down? Too bad. No more video.

And with cable/DVR, I can record hundreds of hours of video and it doesn't impact my Internet speed at all. And my Internet usage doesn't impact video at all. Never any dropping of resolution spontaneously, no missing frames, no freezing.

And with cable/DVR, I can pause, play, rewind, fast forward, and frame-by-frame effectively with my video. And it does so instantly- no lag, no "loading", no hiccups.

So no, this is not "exactly the same as cable."

I don't care if Hulu with commercials was FREE, if it has forced commercials, neither I nor many others will use it. I haven't watched commercials (unless I WANT to) for over 16 years and I will NEVER go back.

Re: Seems only fair

[markdavis]

>"I don't like commercials, but compared to cable/DVR I'd rather have Hulu with commercials."

Choice is a good thing. Free markets give consumers more of what they want. I, for one, am glad Hulu exists even though I have no interest in at least their commercial model, because it spurs more competition. In the past we had none and it is about time the cable monopolies fall under real pressure.

Re: Seems only fair

[markdavis]

>"Complete BS. What sort of fucking retard are you? A free market is by definition not required to do anything for the consumer. That's the whole fucking definition."

Um, if they don't give the consumer what they want, another company will. Or do you think Communism works better?

>"Complete shit for brains..."

Look in the mirror, foul-mouthed coward...

apples and oranges?

[Anonymous Coward]

To even mention the limited commercials price is extremely misleading.

What I see in the article is that Netflix offers a $7.99 / month plan for a single stream non-HD commercial-free stream or $10.99 / month for the standard HD plan, and Hulu's lowest commercial free option is apparently $12 / month.

So, the article says Hulu is more expensive than Netflix unless you're willing to listen to commercials at which time it becomes the same price as the lowest price commercial-free Netflix plan (after the bait-and-switch promotion completes).

Re:2017: Paying to watch TV

[known_coward_69]

does this magical antenna thing work on your phone or tablet?

Stick your commercials you know where

[OneHundredAndTen]

Hulu would have to pay me $5.99 a month.

And Increased Ads

[dcollins]

I noticed that Hulu recently increased the numbers ads in between breaks: I believe from 4 to 5 now. It seems close to interminable. In some cases recently I've finished my dinner and just shut off the program before it could get back.

Since it's inception they've been ratcheting up the ads per break. I think 2 to begin with, now up to 5. I wonder where the end-point is.

Torrents

[Anonymous Coward]

Are offering a very competitive rate. You pay $0 per month, which comes out to $0 per year. Torrents are also commercial free. They offer an impressive library of new and old content including access to original series like Emmy-winning "The Handmaid's Tale." Compared to Netflix and Hulu offerings this is an impressive deal indeed, and it's not some kind of teaser rate that expires after a few months. The $0 fees for torrents are going to last well beyond the 2017 season.

Re:Torrents

[DontBeAMoran]

And is this "Torrents" thing limited to the U.S.A. like Hulu, or is it available world-wide?

New Hulu Interface driving people away

[FerociousFerret]

I think this promotion is to try to deal with the massive rejection of the "New Hulu Experience", i.e. the new interface that sucks and has received massive negative feedback. Hulu has no plans to go back to the previous interface. Many are voting with their wallet, myself included, and dropping Hulu.

Re: New Hulu Interface driving people away

[junk]

Came here to day this. My gut reaction is that this has nothing to do with Netflix and everything to do with losing subscribers. I dropped because of the new UI. It's not just a "change is bad" reaction either. If the new changes were mostly usable, I would adapt. I left because bad change is bad and I'll keep my couple of bucks and put it into an external antenna. The mohu does OK but now it's time to get serious.

Un-FUBAR the interface now

[nobuddy]

All they need to do now us roll back that useless FUBAR interface they pushed out recently. Thats why they are hemorrhaging subscribers.

Re:Un-FUBAR the interface now

[gymbrown]

If you want to see what shows that are on your watch list you can only see 2 shows instead of 12. A quick google will take you to 100s of negative comments but maybe 1 or 2 positive ones.

Re:Nope

[Dutch Gun]

It has a commercial-free tier, with some network-exclusive content. That was the only time they interested me. I'd have never paid them to watch commercials. Once you go commercial free, you really can't go back.

Only it was "mostly" commercial free (a few exceptions). And they also pasted a bug in the corner of the screen advertising the local affiliate station, which was distracting to me (that's an awesome way to make torrents look better than paid subscriptions). And I found I just didn't watch all that much TV anyhow, certainly not enough to justify subscribing to yet another streaming service (which may very well happen to Disney as well).

So, no more Hulu for me.

And I will continue paying for Netflix

[No Longer an AC]

But I will never pay for Hulu.

Netflix isn't perfect and the price increase is mildly annoying I guess. One more dollar a month? I can deal with it. Hulu with no commercials is still more expensive and I still haven't finished watching everything I want to watch on Netflix.

And compared to what I was paying for cable before I cut the cord it's completely insignificant.

But why is Netflix raising their prices by a whole dollar considered news anyway?

Is it news when Comcast raises the price of their service by more than that or when they drop a bunch of channels from the basic plan?

One thing that's great about Netflix is I know how much it will cost from month to month and if there's ever a price increase Slashdot or some other internet news will warn me about it - lord knows Netflix never talks to me. I don't even know if they have a current email address.

But with cable TV you never know what your monthly bill will be and if they tell you one price you know they're neglecting a bunch of add-on fees and it will go up or channels will be removed.

With Netflix, I guess I'll lose Disney movies but I haven't even mustered up the patience to watch that Star Wars movie that's on Netflix because there's other stuff I'd rather watch.

JUST cancelled

[MrDoh!]

After the change to the watchlist that instead of just being the programs I wanted to watch in the order I wanted to watch, setting + on a season, I just got so frustrated with their new watchlist that I 'tuned out'. Sent them a 'please return it how it was, it worked' message and got the "no, you're wrong, this is far better way to manage your subscriptions" response. Then not having anything new to watch for months on end, but it dropping things I'd previously subbed to. Then adding programs I didn't want to watch in my list because they thought I might be interested, when I don't even speak spanish, why's it offering me programmes to watch in a language I don't understand? And the ads, oh my goodness the ads. The same ones over and over and over and over. I'd try to adblock but it stopped the site working (fair enough, they need ad revenue I guess), then offered a 'watch without the ads' deal, but I feel the prior months of the same ads over and over and over was just torture to make the new package seems better value. And then those ads that forced you to do some survey. I want to passively watch, not start answering questions on the name of the actor in Magnum PI. And I can't quit/skip unless I mash a few buttons for a bit. I'm just... burned out. Gave up on hulu. It could/should have been great, and there's bound to be later sites that do what early Hulu did, that'll be popular. But what Hulu ended up being, an ad network you have to pay for, that's slow and clunky to use, keeps getting worse every few months, nope, cancelled a month ago.