digg

Facebook Connect Join Digg About

Soon, you'll have to pay for Hulu

dailyfinance.com — Don't get too attached to all that free, high-quality video on Hulu. It just might disappear behind a pay wall before too long. Speaking last night at an Internet Week event sponsored by The Hollywood Reporter, Jonathan Miller, News Corp.'s newly-installed chief digital officer, said he envisions a future where at least some of the TV shows and ...

Who dugg this? Made popular Jun 3, 2009

Digg DudeWhat is Digg?

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Digg surfaces the best stuff as submitted and voted on by the community. Take the Tour to learn more.

707 Comments

show profanity settings
expand all
  • lamiaconfitor, on 06/03/2009, -10/+2624Fine, Ill just go back to pirating those tv shows.
  • jotchie, on 06/03/2009, -3/+897... and watch the user base fall to next to nothing.
  • MattB123, on 06/03/2009, -4/+837Great news for torrent site operators!
  • sirjimithy, on 06/03/2009, -6/+581***** no. We won't go.
  • Chairboy, on 06/03/2009, -2/+502When I watch on Hulu, I view advertisements between clips. Presumably, this is one sort of 'payment' method that has decades of success in broadcast television and radio, why not build on that?

    I think it's more likely that the advertising will simply increase for the free presentation, and then an ad-free pay option will become available.
  • rnawky, on 06/03/2009, -2/+495No ***** right?

    I used Hulu in hopes of supporting those TV shows by generating ad revenue. Paying for ***** my DVR can record? Nah.
  • bloominoctober, on 06/03/2009, -19/+485Of course you'll have to pay for it. Hulu was too much of a good thing to last very long.
  • eliasg, on 06/03/2009, -1/+412They should have two models... free (with commercials), and pay (commercial-free).

    What they shouldn't do is have you pay and still play commercials.
  • Dea7hleprachaun, on 06/03/2009, -4/+374If they start charging, people'll start going back to the dark side. Companies are all the same in the end, this couldn't possibly last. Pity though.
  • Chunken, on 06/03/2009, -0/+344How to destroy your business in one easy step: Hire the guy that was running AOL.
  • HarryLeeSmith, on 06/03/2009, -1/+344Isn't that why there's ads in the shows???
  • withoutamartyr, on 06/03/2009, -4/+339Hulu was the dam against the wave of piracy, and if they start charging, that dam is just going to burst and the people they sought to pull away from piracy are going to go right back to it.

    It's like if a rehab center returned your heroin to you and apologized for taking it.
  • SoCalChris, on 06/03/2009, -0/+327He mentions that people want bundles... NO WE DON'T! I don't want a "New York Package" containing several New York based papers, as he puts it. I want ONE New York paper to get my news from. I want to pick and choose exactly what I want, not what they think I want. And I won't pay a ridiculous amount for it.
  • fleischkopf, on 06/03/2009, -5/+330Napster started making people pay to use it, and it's still popular, right?
  • RumpleForeskin3, on 06/03/2009, -0/+298Title should read:

    Soon, you won't be using Hulu
  • borez, on 06/03/2009, -3/+199Oh well, that's the end of that site then.
  • ALink2ThePast, on 06/03/2009, -2/+194Maybe it would be worth it if:

    1. No ads whatsoever of any kind. If we're paying this would just be ridiculous.

    2. Every single episode of every show that is on the site.
  • dshPls, on 06/03/2009, -3/+161Bring back Stage 6!
  • Hetman, on 06/03/2009, -4/+140Misleading title. It should say soon you will have to go to a bit torrent instead of hulu.
  • Mistaxe, on 06/03/2009, -16/+149I would gladly pay a 10 or 15$ per month fee (or, even better, be able to select specific shows) to watch all of the NBC, Disney, Universal content that is offered. Ads free of course. If I had the ability to watch anything I wanted on demand, I think it would be well worth it.

    The problem is that media companies still feel the need to have complete control over what we watch, the content we have access to, and the way we watch it. The sooner they shed this archaic mentality and accept the inevitability of instant consumer-controlled content, the better. If they try to pull some ***** like offering "rolling schedules" of shows and still showing ads while also charging a fee, their business will fail in a matter of months. Maybe weeks, considering they're supported entirely by the active Internet population. And everyone knows how passionate we are about our content.
  • Dino451, on 06/03/2009, -0/+117Just when you thought they had it right.
  • Djerrid, on 06/03/2009, -0/+93***** yes. We'll go to uTorrent.
  • Lucas123, on 06/03/2009, -5/+94Alien plot. Avoid.
  • TomT127, on 06/03/2009, -5/+88F*cking A!
  • IKORKYI, on 06/03/2009, -1/+83seriously, if they're going to get greedy when they have a good thing going, ***** em.
  • DahRecords, on 06/03/2009, -0/+79Don't have too much fun. That's when they come and get you.
  • Hetman, on 06/03/2009, -3/+81You might be happy paying for it and I am sure some people would. However the majority of people are just going to go back to using bit torrents.
  • darknecross, on 06/03/2009, -1/+78Stage 6 was the greatest video-based website the internet has ever seen.
  • Maddoktor2, on 06/03/2009, -8/+84Yar Har, Fiddle Dee Dee, bitches.
  • Javy42, on 06/03/2009, -0/+76so successful in fact, that's the first time I've heard it mentioned since the service was announced.
  • neFariou5, on 06/03/2009, -1/+68Outside of America, no one stopped.
  • RoboDonut, on 06/03/2009, -3/+69If it's going to cost money, they better drop the advertisements and offer FULL SERIES with NO EXPIRATION DATE.
    And they better stop pulling this "Oh, the season finale isn't going to be available on Hulu, sorry for wasting twenty-five hours of your life" and "This show is available six months after the episode airs on television" crap.

    Seriously, if it's free, I'm JUST BARELY willing to put up with it, but charging for this kind of service is akin to robbery.
  • neFariou5, on 06/03/2009, -2/+66Look how successful paid Napster was.
  • enthreeoh, on 06/03/2009, -0/+60No, I won't. :)
  • wigenite, on 06/03/2009, -0/+59Amen to that. That's exactly what i was thinking. I have no trust in this guy if that's what he thinks.
    It's one of the many reason people are canceling Cable, including myself. I dont want their frakin bundles. i want alacart type programming, which HULU delivers!
  • greevar, on 06/03/2009, -1/+59There are a number of things that would need to happen to get me to pay for their content.

    1. No more ads
    2. Access to real 1080p quality video and HD audio
    3. More shows and not just clips of shows without any episodes
    4. Make it cheaper than cable by at least 50%
    5. Region free service
    6. Unlimited usage
    7. Access to last year's blockbuster movies

    There may be more, but that's all I could come up with at the moment.
  • Beatmiser, on 06/03/2009, -1/+59Yours: It is broken.
    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v358/AlexClarke/ ...
  • joerod, on 06/03/2009, -1/+53if they are going to charge then why do they show advertisements during the show.. if im gonna pay it better be commercial free
  • zacko11288, on 06/03/2009, -1/+51I got away from Piracy because of Hulu, i think it had the same effect on a lot of people. It's obvious to me that all this guy cares about is making money. It was too good to last
  • harrisbradley, on 06/03/2009, -2/+49<cough>EZTV</cough>
  • kolop1, on 06/03/2009, -0/+46We won't have to pay for hulu. It will never happen. People will just torrent and they know it.
  • bonemachine, on 06/03/2009, -1/+46Of course we won't. Too many other options to watch these shows.

    They figured out a nice easy way to make a few extra bucks showing reruns and are now going to kill it off. Seems a shame.
  • scoot2006, on 06/03/2009, -1/+45WTB a la carte cable/satellite/iptv package.

    All I really want is about 5-10 of the 500 ***** channels you get with a decent tv package :-/
  • inactive, on 06/03/2009, -0/+44***** cable. It's goddamn ridiculous. I refuse to pay to watch advertising. I'll be glad to sit through advertising that pays for the show, I'll be glad to pay for the show myself, but I'm not ***** gonna pay twice.
  • Beatmiser, on 06/03/2009, -0/+43You know it's absolutely true. Between Hulu and Instant Viewing on Netflix (Which yes I know is a paid service), I haven't torrented a damn thing in the last 4 or 5 months. Losing Hulu would turn me right back toward Isohunt to get my shows, because honestly my life doesn't revolve around when Networks choose to air their shows.
  • kolop1, on 06/03/2009, -0/+42Would you pay for it if it still had ads?
  • Rivetgeek, on 06/03/2009, -0/+41some of you might be too young to remember this but originally the lure of cable was that it had no ads. It wasnt till the early 90s they realized that anything worth watching was on cable and they had you by the balls
  • dogfood, on 06/03/2009, -0/+41No biggie, downloading a torrent might take another 2 minutes out of my day, but at least I don't have to watch commercials anymore.
  • thcobbs, on 06/03/2009, -1/+41A corporation on the side of the consumer not paying? Yeah, right!

    Its gonna be like cable all over again. Pay for cable, and you won't have to watch commercials!... Oh, what's that? We need a FEW commercials in there... that's not so bad right?
  • Chunken, on 06/03/2009, -0/+39Almost as ridiculous as paying for cable tv and then having 40% of the stuff you pay for be commercials.
  • Fetching more discussions...
    Show 51 - 100 of 713 discussions

  • Add a Comment

    Login or register to comment!
    Or, sign-in super fast with your Facebook account ...


© Digg Inc. 2009 — Content created and posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain | Terms of Use Updated | Privacy Policy
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.