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Hulu's Glorious Free Days Are Officially Numbered

gizmodo.com — Hulu, at the behest of its co-parent News Corp, is going to start charging for content in 2010. This is not so good, this here news.

Who dugg this? Made popular Oct 23, 2009

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  • lcg9q3, on 10/22/2009, -8/+1517"Raise your hand if you're willing to pay for free broadcast content over the internet?" - Yeah, that's what I thought.

    I love Hulu, but the site will die if it switches to a paid model. Let's hope they only charge for a premium section and keep the free, ad-supported shows.
  • WeirdEdsel, on 10/23/2009, -3/+1242Torrents will be faster in 2010.
  • neelshiv, on 10/22/2009, -7/+943Given the state of Hulu, there is nothing that they can charge me fore that I wont decide to pirate instead. It currently exists as a mere convenience to me.
  • RK5000, on 10/23/2009, -18/+751This is why we steal.
  • Yage2006, on 10/23/2009, -3/+658And then a mass majority of people who use it will go back to what they were doing before which is downloading it for free and without adds.

  • orbish, on 10/23/2009, -4/+610Well ***** you, I'll just read a book!
  • venom8599, on 10/23/2009, -4/+552So Hulu is dying in 2010, eh? Oh well. I'll just resume torrenting all the TV shows I want to watch.
  • jza414, on 10/23/2009, -1/+481Just stick to the advertising. It's worked for television for some 50 years.
  • L0NER, on 10/23/2009, -5/+379'If Hulu starts charging for content, you have permission to pirate the crap out of their stuff"
    Kevin Rose.
    Diggnation nyc
  • ThatGeek, on 10/23/2009, -1/+336When they do this hulu will die. I like hulu much better than torrenting, but I'm not going to pay to watch something I could watch over the air.
    News corp... you just dont get it
  • WanderingGuru, on 10/23/2009, -5/+324They should look at Pandora. They offer 40 hours free a month and it's ad supported. If you run out of minutes in a month you can get unlimited listening for the rest of the month for $1 more (nothing else changes, you just bypass that month's hourly limit). However, if you really like it you can get a year subscription for about $35 which gives unlimited listening, removes all the commercials, gives access to a desktop app that you can run it from, allows you to skip more songs, and gives you better quality streams.

    Hulu should think about offering only like 20-30 hours free a month with the current ad system and allow people to purchase unlimited minutes free for the rest of the month for $2 or something relatively cheap. On top of that offer a year subscription for like $50 and have no commercials, higher resolution, and a larger selection of back episodes or an entire series instead of just the most recent episodes. If they followed something like that I could imagine it working out quite well for both the creators and the consumers.
  • rabidmonkey1, on 10/23/2009, -15/+290But... We have to stop calling it stealing. We have to change the word battle. It's rebroadcasting. It's fair use. With empowering technology, everyone becomes a broadcaster and receiver.

    Seriously, "pirates" hurt themselves by calling themselves things like pirates and saying that they "steal". Can't we think up a cool name that isn't loaded with a negative connotation, like the Digital Liberation Front, or something?
  • kingbinji, on 10/23/2009, -2/+277RIP Hulu
    2007-2010
  • mrstoneok, on 10/23/2009, -5/+244I haven't used Hulu, but I do hope that this happens and then it goes under. It will show people exactly how successful the common "pay-and-play" business model is.
  • scy1192, on 10/23/2009, -0/+216WHY CAN'T WE HAVE NICE THINGS
  • IphtashuFitz, on 10/23/2009, -1/+214Time to go register thepiratehulu.com...
  • 12Hundred, on 10/23/2009, -9/+211***** BALLS
  • Kraeten, on 10/23/2009, -1/+178Dugg for torrent links at bottom of article.
  • UtahApocalyse, on 10/23/2009, -2/+172Well its back to torrents. Hulu was the first time I watched advertising in shows in years. Guess now the 'sponsors' will lose my viewing.
  • Munceenuts, on 10/23/2009, -6/+174I'd gladly pay $29.99 a year if all of the content was ad-free and in full HD.
  • furburglar, on 10/22/2009, -14/+174No pricepoints in the article... theoretically I'd pay a maximum of $29.99/yr for "Hulu Pro", if they double their catalog and remove ads or allow ad-skipping. That might be more than other people would spend, but I don't have TV.
  • jonlarge, on 10/23/2009, -3/+144I came here expecting to make a comment like "it will be a cold day in hell before I pay to stream content." But after reading your post, I have to say, that sounds perfectly reasonable.
  • lordwow, on 10/23/2009, -0/+137They just don't GET IT, do they?
  • tnoy, on 10/23/2009, -3/+134I'd gladly pay for Hulu if it were 100% void of commercials and I could watch entire seasons of shows.

    ..and they offered it in a quality above the ***** low-res crap that it is now.

    ..and shows went live when they go live on local TV.
  • DaviDTC, on 10/23/2009, -0/+120And go to the tv to watch 15 minutes of commercials in an hour long show.
  • itlnstln, on 10/23/2009, -0/+112Watch as your traffic is cut by 75% the second you start charging. I can't wait for them to see how stupid an idea this is.
  • AhrenBa, on 10/23/2009, -1/+113This is really too bad. I was just starting to really enjoy Hulu and the experience it gave. Too bad they are going to F it up next year. RIP. Btw, note to companies. You start off charging and THEN go free, not the other way around. It will never work.
  • Checkerd, on 10/23/2009, -2/+111All in favor for browncoats say aye.
  • areber04, on 10/23/2009, -1/+105either you forgot your /s tag, or you are retarded...

    Pain in the ass comercials? They last 30 seconds, 3-5 times per show. How is that unreasonable? They still need to make money, they are a business. This is ignorance of the cost of delivering content at its finest.
  • Barackalypse, on 10/23/2009, -5/+102Torrents are already faster in 2009, and better quality, and commercial free.
  • darkciti2, on 10/23/2009, -4/+100Good. I hope Rupert Murdoch and his greedy cohorts price themselves into insignificance. People aren't going to pay to read news on the internet, or watch videos. The genie is out of the bottle and it's going back in.
  • Charlie1er, on 10/23/2009, -1/+97We can live without Hulu.

    - rest of the world
  • themastersb, on 10/23/2009, -4/+92The good ole bait and switch maneuver.
  • jjc5004, on 10/23/2009, -0/+87The following book is brought to you with limited commercial interruption by...
  • aherman, on 10/23/2009, -5/+91You win my favourite comment of the day award!
  • tidu, on 10/23/2009, -2/+81wow, macmcraeart.... chill the ***** out. "brain rotting propaganda ***** blast at viewers the whole time that infernal box is powered up."? crawl out of the bomb shelter and make some friends
  • binaryloop, on 10/23/2009, -0/+79The key word here is "sold" -- as in you get to keep them. I'm willing to pay for high-quality downloads of my favorite shows that I get to keep. I can watch them again and again on my Apple TV. (I still object to their DRM model though).

    But, if you think people will pay to stream TV shows, you're crazy.
  • Meatshield, on 10/23/2009, -0/+78They had a good system going. I didn't mind 30 second ads in place of the usual couple of minutes on regular television. I liked even better the minute and a half ads at the beginning and then commercial free from then on.

    I WANT to help the studios out (ok, that's a lie, I want to help the shows stay on the air) but I'm not going to pay what will most likely be an unreasonable amount for the two shows I watch on there (Heroes and Greek). I'll just go back to using streaming sites. And I'm sure most of us will be following me in that.
  • pilot3033, on 10/23/2009, -0/+737 days? I already hate that *****. If I'm paying for Hulu (which will probably never happen) then I better be getting the episode at the LATEST the day after it aired.
  • seltaeb4, on 10/23/2009, -3/+75More like 99.8%.
  • MrMischief20, on 10/23/2009, -1/+73Oh hai Bittorent! :D
  • tnoy, on 10/23/2009, -0/+72If you're reading on a Kindle, make sure to read it before Amazon remotely deletes it!
  • greevar, on 10/23/2009, -4/+75And they didn't have a buffer under run every 30 seconds.
  • TheBlargh, on 10/23/2009, -3/+72how the ***** are they suppose to make money you dumb *****. I am all for free content but the providers are going to have to make money someway or else there is nothing in it for them.
  • bouche, on 10/23/2009, -4/+64Maybe the point is to make Hulu available worldwide. They can't seem to allow us Canadians to watch vids on the site. I'm still perplexed why there are borders on the internet.

    More people will just learn how to deal with torrents.
  • DrunkenPirate34, on 10/23/2009, -0/+57Yea and for something reasonable like $50 dollars/year I would pay it because internet tv is my only tv.
  • proghead, on 10/23/2009, -1/+58Because of this.
  • artfiend77, on 10/23/2009, -1/+56RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGE! SMMAAAAAAAAAASH!!!!!!!!
  • MaxxusFlamus, on 10/23/2009, -0/+55if they keep hulu the way it is but charge for say, access to ALL episodes, instead of keeping no more than 5 eps online at a time for popular shows, then they might have a model.

    But if they're gonna charge for what hulu exists as right now?

    Oh hulu...our time was so short lived.
  • rnawky, on 10/23/2009, -0/+54I used Hulu so that maybe the shows I watched would get a little ad revenue.

    Now they're going back to getting nothing.

    You really can't beat clicking 1 link, going to bed, and waking up to [Insert Favorite TV Show Here] Seasons 1, 2, 3, and 4 in 720 or 1080p
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