Boohoo Hulu

Hulu, the really nifty Flash-based online media site, is considering charging for content starting in 2010. The company hasn't disclosed details yet about when it'll start charging or what type(s) of content it'll charge for, but it's clear that charging of some kind is going to happen.

Hulu is, in one sense, basically a cable subscription with "on-demand" and DVR rolled into one. You can subscribe to different shows, and they get dropped into your queue for you to watch whenever you like. Or, you can browse through existing content, whether TV shows or movies and either add it to your queue or watch it immediately. I really like it – as a free service.

Moving to a paid subscription model, though, sucks for folks like me who recently dumped their cable television plan and are relying on sites like Hulu to catch up on favorite shows like House, The Office, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia... and Dollhouse. (Unfortunately, Dollhouse may not be a problem in 2010, since Fox, which is owned by the same parent company as Hulu [NewsCorp], seems intent on canceling it.) It means I'm either going to have to start paying for content again, or I'll need to dust off Xtorrent and find some good torrent tracker sites, since Demonoid seems to have fallen into the pit of Intarwebs hell.

That said, unlike smithee at Consumerism Commentary, who thinks that Hulu shouldn't both advertise and charge for content¹, I won't be that upset if Hulu does both. Because frankly, I probably won't use their service if they go to a pay model, regardless of whether they also have advertising. I'm okay with the ads they have now – most are 30 seconds long or shorter, and even though you can't really skip them, you can always take a few moments to check your email or browse through your RSS feed – but paying a fee for the service when I can get the same content easily elsewhere seems silly. If I was going to do that, I would've kept my cable.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. Of course, Hulu will likely trick convince some people to pay for their service (Mr. Barnum's words still ring true...). The question is whether they can convince enough of them to make it worthwhile. I find it hard to believe they will though.

Because while Hulu is nice as a free service, as a pay service it would kind of suck. If I were to pay for a service like this, I would want something as good – or better – as I can get with a cable subscription. My requirements would include:

• Watch television shows "live" — Hulu content is delayed until after a show airs. Sometimes it's only for a day, sometimes longer. For example, House isn't available until eight days after each episode airs, which – I won't lie to you – kinda blows.
• No expiration — Some content is only available for a short period of time. Which means you probably won't, for example, save the entire final season of LOST and watch it over the boring summer months when your programming choices degrade to Wipeout, I Claim to Be a Celebrity Get Me Outta Here, and the TV Guide channel.
• Better selection — Their selection is pretty good, but it's not great. I realize that moving to the subscription model is intended, in part, to entice additional content providers to join their current cadre, so that concern might be diluted – but that's just a promise right now.
• Higher hi-def resolutions — Currently, "hi-def" at Hulu means 480p. Call me a snob, but if I'm paying for hi-def, I want at least 720p.
• Cheaper than cable — And when I say "cheaper" I don't mean like $5 a month less. It probably would have to be at least half as expensive as a comparable cable package, and maybe even less, for me to partake in the service.

But those are just my own prerequisites. What about you? Would you pay? How much?

P.S. This post written while "watching" Hulu. :)

Footnotes

1. I think smithee takes the wrong approach in describing the history of service payment models. Television was funded by advertising revenue not because the content distributors thought that it was the best model, but because there was no way at the time to charge consumers directly. The reason people are willing to pay for cable, despite that fact that you still have to watch the ads, is due to signal quality, a broader range of content than you can get with rabbit ears (in most places) – including access to premium channels that you can't get elsewhere – and infrastructure costs. Yes, they probably have to pay content creators, but so do affiliates that broadcast over the air, so I don't see much weight to the argument that cable fees are primarily based on such distribution fees. His description of telephone fees also seems off: There's a huge technological difference between land lines and cell phones. With a land line, only the person calling gets charged because they are the ones initiating the signal; with cell phones, both caller and called require a signal. (He also ignores the facts that 1) you typically have to pay a monthly fee for a landline phone in the first place, and 2) many cell providers allow a certain amount of "in-plan" calling for "free.") A better comparison would be between landlines and VoIP, which shows that the cost of making calls has gone down.