Who Do You Hulu ....

Matt-Man is finally HOME from the hospital!!! Now he can finally start getting better. Go welcome him home.


--


Saturday and Sunday mornings are usually Hulu Day here for me. I go to Hulu.com and watch some of the shows that I missed last week. Some shows are more than a week behind being posted and I'm a couple of weeks behind some of them. But, that's okay cause it's not like I'm going to die if I completely miss any show. Except maybe "Sons of Anarchy" or "Mad Men" or "Modern Family."

Anyway, last week Malcolm posted a link to a story about how sometime next year Hulu is going to start charging for access. Right now the shows and movies are free, but there are some very short ads that you have to sit through.

The question Malcolm asked is "Will you be willing to pay for Hulu?" My answer is "I don't know." It's actually kind of difficult to decide.

One of the things that bugs me is how many people seem to truly believe that we have some God-given right to see these programs for free. Personally, I believe that the people who create this product have the right to charge for it. It's there's and it costs a lot of money to create. I'm not going to get into the whole “actors and writers are all overpaid” shit. That's an argument that drives me crazy. Especially when it comes from supposedly free market conservative who defend CEO salaries to the ends of the Earth but scream that other people are so over paid and so undeserving of their pay.

Anyway, back to Hulu. I think a lot of it depends on how much they charge and whether or not they drop the ads. If they go subscription only and drop the ads, it might not be that bad of a deal. But, I think they would have to expand their offerings too. Like making the whole season available and making episodes available the next day instead of having to wait eight days like they do for some shows now. And, they'll have to expand their movie database. They really don't have that many good movies on there. Oh, and the old shows from back in the day should be covered under that one price subscription. Or free cause they're old and not on the air anymore anyway. But, then again, the people who wrote and acted and worked on those shows should be getting royalties for them if we're still watching them too. So, maybe they shouldn't be free. Hell, I don’t know.

On the other hand, by charging for access, Hulu will just drive people back to the torrent sites and other websites that carry those TV shows and movies for free. Which is illegal so if you're doing that you should stop.

Like I said, I think it all rests on the prices they charge. If it's a small fee and you get full access, then I think it could be a pretty big success and I would consider doing it. Especially if it worked out to be cheaper than cable and all the good stuff was on there.

Obviously we're headed for all the networks, including basic and premium cable eventually putting their stuff up on the net, but not for free. The real question for me is will all those separate fees add up to more or less than paying for cable access? Oh who am I kidding. It will cost more. Lots and lots more. Fucking cable bastards will make sure of that.

Of course cable operators and TV execs all believe that Hulu will be the death of cable. Of course, they all thought DVRs would be the death of TV too. They thought VCRs would be the death of TV back in the day. They’re just a bunch of scaredy cats who are afraid of technology and change. That’s because they don’t understand it.

Anyway, I honestly don’t know if what Hulu should do and I don’t know if I would be willing to pay for it. I do know that both subscription AND ads would really suck. But, being able to tell the cable company to piss off would be sooooooo much fun.

So, what do you think? Will you pay for Hulu? What if you could get rid of cable and see ALL of your shows on Hulu or online?

--

Also, if you were expecting WWC pics today, I’ve moved my WWC posting to Tuesday nights. This way I can post the next week’s words when I post my pics. (If I remember to.) And, I have no idea what I’m going to do for “Night Life” this week. I live in a dry county for crying out loud. We don’t have any night life here.