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Hulu is eliminating its free, ad-supported streaming service

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Re: Hulu is eliminating its free, ad-supported streaming service

#41

Post by greggyb »

erdevs wrote: post #16

Between Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO Go, Showtime, etc on-demand services... what is left keeping people from cutting the cable TV cord? Just awareness and inertia? (Which are powerful, witness AOL dial-up ISP for a decade+.) Or are there other things keeping people tethered still? Sports? Reality TV series which don't all make it onto these on-demand services? Think this a smart move on Hulu's part. And depending on t…

In the US, you cannot get Olympic coverage without a cable subscription. The streaming from NBC demands authentication with the credentials from your cable subscription. I don't have one. I can't even try to use my internet service credentials, because my current apartment includes 50/50 fiber for free (the most first world problem. Maybe even a .5 world problem).

I signed up for Sling[0] for a free trial to watch the games. The annoying part is that the event I truly care about (Judo) is minimally covered on network television and at awkward hours.

[0]http://www.sling.com

Re: Hulu is eliminating its free, ad-supported streaming service

#42

Post by dragonwriter »

SwellJoe wrote: post #29

Hulu has always seemed like its primary goal is to serve the incumbent television providers, and not their viewers. I don't know if it's still this way, but when the paid version was first introduced, I tried it for a while, but they often only had the most recent season of a show. What am I supposed to do with that? Start watching a show at season 5? Netflix gets it: I want to either watch the whole show from the be…

> Are there shows or movies on Hulu that I'm not getting from Netflix or Prime?

Yes, each has a different set of back-catalog shows, Hulu has current-season shows from a number of networks, and all three outlets of exclusive, first-party content.

They also overlap significantly, so whether the marginal value of adding Hulu is justified is a question you'll have to answer yourself, but there is definitely stuff you won't have with the other two that you would by adding Hulu.

Re: Hulu is eliminating its free, ad-supported streaming service

#43

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

I remember when Hulu first launched. Hulu was the future.

I than remember my IP being blocked by Hulu because I was running a Tor node. Before you say that sounds reasonable, it wasn't an exit node. And Tor provides methods to tell the diference.

I was forced to take the node down, because my brother wanted Hulu, and we live together.

Goodbye Hulu. Goodbye and good riddance. I know you think your customers will join your paid service. They won't. Most of your users are bound for either the richer streaming services, or PopcornTime and similar.

Way to make yourself less relevant.

Re: Hulu is eliminating its free, ad-supported streaming service

#44

Post by mikestew »

erdevs wrote: post #16

Between Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO Go, Showtime, etc on-demand services... what is left keeping people from cutting the cable TV cord? Just awareness and inertia? (Which are powerful, witness AOL dial-up ISP for a decade+.) Or are there other things keeping people tethered still? Sports? Reality TV series which don't all make it onto these on-demand services? Think this a smart move on Hulu's part. And depending on t…

Sports and inertia are my guesses. Sports, because that's what I hear everyone say when asked why they still have cable. Inertia because paying the cable bill every month is easier than explaining to your spouse why he can't watch Real Housewives of Bumphuck, ID on a lark. That, and I don't think cord-cutting is for people that sit down in front of a TV to watch something. I've caught myself doing that: flip the remote until I find the least uninteresting thing that moves and makes noise.

My spouse, thankfully, is about as big a fan of commercial television as I am, so it was easy sell to unhook DirecTV seven or eight years ago. Between Netflix, iTunes, and HBO Now, we have more TV than we have time to watch (again, not big watchers to begin with). When we sit down, it's with a purpose, not channel-flipping. That's not to say we're more noble than others, as we'll bing-watch a series with the best of them. We just don't sit down to "watch TV", we sit down to "watch Stranger Things".

Hulu? That was part of our cord-cutting way back when. But the commercials got more frequent, and long before Hulu wised up and offered "ad-free" we just quit watching it. Sorry, Hulu, inertia works both ways and we got used to doing without you, never to return.

Re: Hulu is eliminating its free, ad-supported streaming service

#45

Post by imglorp »

qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #43

I remember when Hulu first launched. Hulu was the future. I than remember my IP being blocked by Hulu because I was running a Tor node. Before you say that sounds reasonable, it wasn't an exit node. And Tor provides methods to tell the diference. I was forced to take the node down, because my brother wanted Hulu, and we live together. Goodbye Hulu. Goodbye and good riddance. I know you think your customers will join…

Considering Hulu is owned by ABC, Fox, and Comcast, any optimism of a delighted customer would have been misplaced. They were basically competing against their own model and had every reason to make you miserable.

They refused to validate the netflix model.

Re: Hulu is eliminating its free, ad-supported streaming service

#46

Post by mikestew »

greggyb wrote: post #41
erdevs wrote: post #16

Between Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO Go, Showtime, etc on-demand services... what is left keeping people from cutting the cable TV cord? Just awareness and inertia? (Which are powerful, witness AOL dial-up ISP for a decade+.) Or are there other things keeping people tethered still? Sports? Reality TV series which don't all make it onto these on-demand services? Think this a smart move on Hulu's part. And depending on t…

In the US, you cannot get Olympic coverage without a cable subscription. The streaming from NBC demands authentication with the credentials from your cable subscription. I don't have one. I can't even try to use my internet service credentials, because my current apartment includes 50/50 fiber for free (the most first world problem. Maybe even a .5 world problem). I signed up for Sling[0] for a free trial to watch th…

In the US, you cannot get Olympic coverage without a cable subscription.

Not entirely true if one doesn't mind a little grey area by SSH tunneling to your London, UK Linode and watching it on BBC. There was a good step-by-step post at http://bearsfightingbears.com/how-to-watch-the-olympics-live..., but it doesn't work for me anymore. It's what I did in 2012. Now I just don't care enough to bother. :-)

Re: Hulu is eliminating its free, ad-supported streaming service

#47

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

imglorp wrote: post #45
qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #43

I remember when Hulu first launched. Hulu was the future. I than remember my IP being blocked by Hulu because I was running a Tor node. Before you say that sounds reasonable, it wasn't an exit node. And Tor provides methods to tell the diference. I was forced to take the node down, because my brother wanted Hulu, and we live together. Goodbye Hulu. Goodbye and good riddance. I know you think your customers will join…

Considering Hulu is owned by ABC, Fox, and Comcast, any optimism of a delighted customer would have been misplaced. They were basically competing against their own model and had every reason to make you miserable. They refused to validate the netflix model.

Speaking as a member of an area Comcast serves, they are the devil. They're actually worse than other ISPs. Somehow.

Re: Hulu is eliminating its free, ad-supported streaming service

#48

Post by SwellJoe »

hsod wrote: post #36
SwellJoe wrote: post #29

Hulu has always seemed like its primary goal is to serve the incumbent television providers, and not their viewers. I don't know if it's still this way, but when the paid version was first introduced, I tried it for a while, but they often only had the most recent season of a show. What am I supposed to do with that? Start watching a show at season 5? Netflix gets it: I want to either watch the whole show from the be…

> I have Netflix and Amazon Prime; is there a reason to add Hulu to the mix, at this point? If you want to watch currently airing shows on your own schedule, instead of when they actually air. If you only like to watch back catalogs, maybe it isn't for you. But you can't watch the very latest episodes of in-season shows on Netflix or Prime (for the most part). Hulu is mostly a replacement for DVR/cable On Demand, not…

I don't own a TV and have never had cable. I have no idea what's currently on television. I don't really care to watch shows as they happen, in the general case; I'm fine watching them at the end of the season (or all at once from the beginning, the way Netflix does their shows). There are very few shows I'd be extra excited to get as they air (Game of Thrones is the only one that comes to mind, and I would pay to watch it in a reasonable way online, but HBO doesn't provide a reasonable way to do so).

Netflix has historically been my favorite of the available options; but their selection, particularly movies but also shows, has gotten pretty weak in recent years, so I always vaguely consider alternatives. But, mostly I just end up renting via Amazon Instant Video when it's something that Netflix and Prime don't have.

Re: Hulu is eliminating its free, ad-supported streaming service

#49

Post by qbrass »

wonks wrote: post #27
hsod wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case anyone was wondering, from https://help.hulu.com/articles/52427902#list "In response to feedback from our viewers, we started offering a commercial free experience on Hulu. For a small number of shows, however, we have not obtained the rights to stream commercial free and they are not included in our No Commercials plan. You can still easily access these shows with a short commercial before and after each epi…

cringes Well, I admit there are only a few things they don't have the full rights to, and they're shows I don't watch, but I still find this grating. They said "ad-free" and I pay for that. Not "almost ad-free".

So they pull the content that they'd have to show ads on, and now you're complaining that the paid tier has less content than the free tier does.

Re: Hulu is eliminating its free, ad-supported streaming service

#50

Post by greggyb »

mikestew wrote: post #46
greggyb wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, you cannot get Olympic coverage without a cable subscription. The streaming from NBC demands authentication with the credentials from your cable subscription. I don't have one. I can't even try to use my internet service credentials, because my current apartment includes 50/50 fiber for free (the most first world problem. Maybe even a .5 world problem). I signed up for Sling[0] for a free trial to watch th…

In the US, you cannot get Olympic coverage without a cable subscription. Not entirely true if one doesn't mind a little grey area by SSH tunneling to your London, UK Linode and watching it on BBC. There was a good step-by-step post at http://bearsfightingbears.com/how-to-watch-the-olympics-live... , but it doesn't work for me anymore. It's what I did in 2012. Now I just don't care enough to bother. :-)

Yes, my "In the US" means for a network endpoint in the US. There are always ways to exert control over where the apparent endpoint of your connection is.
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