The begining of the end for Hulu?

[panteragstk]

Just read this article. This would indeed be a very stupid move on their part.

No more free Hulu?

[sic0048]

Only time will tell, but we are hoping that Hulu will increase the amount of offerings when they move to a fee based system. Perhaps they will even keep some/most of the current selections available for free just to keep people hooked.

I'd probably pay (it depends on the actual cost) if I could get full seasons of shows on Hulu, have more channels and shows that they offer now, etc, etc, etc., even if they continued to show the brief commercials like they do now.

So while it could be the beginning of the end for Hulu, it could also be the beginning of something great. We'll just have to wait until they release more details about their plans. At this point, everyone is simply speculating.

[stanger89]

I think it depends on what/if else they do. I think the pay model could work, but they'd have to do things like improve quality, increase access (allow set top devices to use it, like Sage/Xbox/Roku/etc), fewer (no) commercials. Basically they need to offer more to make the fee justified.

If they just try to charge from free to paid, they're going to kill themselves. Who wants to pay to watch TV in a web brower?

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I think it depends on what/if else they do. I think the pay model could work, but they'd have to do things like improve quality, increase access (allow set top devices to use it, like Sage/Xbox/Roku/etc), fewer (no) commercials. Basically they need to offer more to make the fee justified.

If they just try to charge from free to paid, they're going to kill themselves. Who wants to pay to watch TV in a web brower?

I agree. If they keep their service the way it is nobody would want to pay for it. However, if they went the way netflix did and try to support as many products as possible while offering commercial free or at least VERY few commercials I could see hulu being very popular with the pay model.

Even if they offer more shows with fewer or no commercials they will have to expand to something other than a browser window. Most people aren't going to want to pay for that.

They need to take a look at amazon, blockbuster, netflix and see that their pay model works well enough to be integated into TV's and even tivos. Only time will tell.

[hemicuda]

I'd "consider," I said consider, paying for Hulu if they had a better online selection than Netflix. I haven't tuned into a 'Watch it now' movie on netflix in months because there's just nothing I really care to see. Maybe it's just me. Ignore the crazy person in the corner. He's mumbling to himself.