Black Raven Dragoons

[Zancarius]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... wD9BGE6S06

Edit:

This turns out to be a knee-jerk reaction from most news aggregators, and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Anyway, Turus discovered an important detail about Hulu's pay-for offerings below.

(Of course, I still wonder whether or not the public reaction at large had anything to do with this...)

[Snobal]

Well... Hulu just lost all respect from me. They're screwed, IMO.

[Grimblast]

I could see why they would do that. I've watched quite a few things on Hulu and always wondered how they get by with so few advertisements as it is. They could be directly competitive with satellite companys and cable companies if they can offer a cheaper on demand product if they go the route of subscription fees. It could also mean that they could pull in more content too. I'm just surprised they've gone as long as they have and they even have advertisements on TV for their website. I'm curious to see what they do though. I must admit I like free but free must come at a price to someone.

[Snobal]

Hulu isn't the only place legal on the net to watch movies and TV shows. Most big TV shows have their own websites where you can watch the shows online. (SouthPark, Family Guy, etc.) And we all know movies can be found virtually everywhere. Hulu doesn't draw that big of a crowd. Even then, most of their crowd consists of people who aren't willing to pay. Especially at $5 a week. Eff that.

[Zancarius]

I suspect that unless their fee is modest, they're going to kill themselves. Maybe I'm wrong, but if you follow the Slashdot conversation here, I don't think I'm that far off. Plus, if they don't change their current content model, display ads while charging a fee, and continue to expire content, viewers will just go elsewhere. With the exception of those rare programs like Sno mentioned, the content providers are their own worst enemies.

I often wonder how many of Hulu's viewers are like me. I don't watch shows on television and if it weren't offered for free, I wouldn't watch it at all.

[Snobal]

I often wonder how many of Hulu's viewers are like me. I don't watch shows on television and if it weren't offered for free, I wouldn't watch it at all.

From what I've seen in comments here and there, a vast majority.

[Tirian]

Generally speaking, we're seeing on the net time and time again that there's a thin line for media pricing that, when crossed, will just result in people pirating. We'll see how Hulu's model pans out before they officially switch over.

[Zancarius]

Generally speaking, we're seeing on the net time and time again that there's a thin line for media pricing that, when crossed, will just result in people pirating. We'll see how Hulu's model pans out before they officially switch over.

Exactly. What's interesting is that the media companies think their intellectual property is worth a certain price, yet when pressed to pay for it via digital distribution, people are more likely to pirate it as you stated. $0.99/song seems reasonable judging by the success of iTunes and Amazon's MP3 service yet strangely, I don't see many people flocking to subscription sites that offer up to X songs downloaded per month for a $15/mo. fee. It seems to me that the distributors who have based their distribution model around monthly fees tend to look at their service as an all-you-can-eat buffet while the consumer's preferences tend toward a pay-as-you-go consumption model.

I realize music is a different beast from television shows and movies, but I'm compelled to wonder how well a shift toward a fee-based model is going to work. Consider music downloads: You purchase a song for what the market deems is a fair price, you download it, and you can play it as much as you like. More importantly, as the success of Amazon's MP3 service has pointed out, DRM-laden music is not well-received (after all, iTunes was forced to shift away from crippled content and provide MP3 downloads). How will it work out for Hulu if 1) the consumer still doesn't "own" anything, 2) you have to use their proprietary players (although they do have Windows, OS X, and Linux based players if you wish to build your own home theater PC), and--the most touchy point--3) they decide to keep advertisements.

Bandwidth isn't free. Neither is a license to play content. I'm curious as to how much the consumer will think a site like Hulu truly is worth. Pandora recently shifted their model from completely free to partially free/fee-based. After litigation by the recording industry, it was stipulated that Internet radio stations must pay $20,000/year in licensing fees. Thus, I believe Pandora now only provides up to 40 hours a month of free listening before users are required to pay. While I believe the fee is absurdly large and imposes an artificial barrier to entry that effectively eliminates smaller Internet radio stations from competing in the mix, I would find reasonable consumption limits to be fair.

However, radio in general and music in particular are seen as something different by consumers. It's still media, sure, but the consumer doesn't appear to treat all media equally. Take a look at satellite and cable services. The fees subscribers pay to their satellite or cable company are largely viewed as an access charge--something to support of the hardware and gain access to the provider's network. Television entertainment, in the eye of the consumer, is something paid for by advertising. While this view is vastly different from reality--the fees paid for cable and satellite also go toward licensing content and other network surcharges--the consumer largely isn't aware of this nor do they care. If you play commercials, that is how you're paying to give me what I'm watching.

What's the reaction from the average consumer going to be?

"I'm already paying for this Internet thing, so why do I have to pay $10 a month to watch some shows that I already get on my TV and on a bigger screen?"

[Grimblast]

http://popwatch.ew.com/2009/10/29/hulu-free/

Somewhat of a relief for some it may seem.

[Zancarius]

That's comforting to know!

I should add a note to the original to reference your citation.

[Snobal]

*Phew* Thank you baby Jesus.

[Swaagdaddy]

Thank Gawd and Baby Jesus!

[Snobal]

On the strempf.