Hulu: We Know That Hulu Plus Sucks, But It's Not Our Fault
from the reading-between-the-lines dept
We were among many, many folks who were completely underwhelmed by Hulu’s subscription plan for Hulu Plus. It was $10 for… not much. In fact, new reports are showing that 88% of Hulu Plus content is available via regular Hulu. On the whole, if they are going to lock up content, I’m actually glad to see them keep most content for free, but it’s still not clear what additional value they’re offering to get people to pay up, and customers are noticing. It seems that Hulu actually recognizes this, however. Consumerist has an email that someone from Hulu sent to an unhappy Hulu Plus customer about the weak selection and the need for ads even though she had paid, and the letter basically admits that Hulu knows Hulu Plus sucks, but they’re limited by annoying contracts and they’re trying to change it. Yes, it’s a bit of a paraphrase, but that’s certainly what’s implied here:
In the ideal world, we would absolutely love and want nothing more but to be able to get every popular show out there that users love, and acquire the legal rights to stream them across every fancy device imaginable at the price that everybody wants. Unfortunately, due to stringent contract agreements on how content can be shared through certain devices, we are not able to have all of the content that everyone wants at this time.
Of course, this all comes back to the same thing we’ve said before. Hulu’s in such a difficult place because the company needs to keep other companies so happy that it can’t disrupt the businesses it needs to disrupt. You simply don’t disrupt legacy businesses by working within their guidelines.
Filed Under: content providers, hulu plus, subscription, tv, video
Companies: hulu
Comments on “Hulu: We Know That Hulu Plus Sucks, But It's Not Our Fault”
subtext
I love it because the subtext of that paragraph is so obviously.
“Sorry, we sold our souls to the devil. Turns out he’s retarded.”
Re: subtext
Thank you for making my spit my drink out onto my keyboard. 🙂
Re: Re: subtext
You shouldn’t drink & type….
too much credit
hulu has cried wolf for the last time for me. paraphrasing, “i know it sux, i get it, i don’t want to do it, it’s not my fault…”
a not so thorough search of this magnificent site turns up a slew of similar entirely consistent stories, here’s one:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090218/1627113821.shtml
may i suggest mike that in the future you drop the dichotomy: if they’re being honest they must want to disrupt their patrons, if only said patrons weren’t idiots, and get to the heart of the matter…
hulu is nothing more than internet protocol broadcasting, and broadcasters are, of course, fully deserving of your most withering sneer :).
My girlfriend loves Hulu more then Netflix but when I told her it was 10 bucks for just more content she could care less. I guess if they weren’t greedy and took out the commercials there would be more interest.
Why Pay??
88% of the paid content is free.
The paid content still has commercials.
Why Pay??
Re: Why Pay??
Not all paid content has ads, kids shows dont have ads if you pay.
Dear Hulu:
You think I give a crap about your excuses?
With Love,
Your ex-customer.
Re: cancelled
Oh yes… that was the best thing you did. I barely got through the free trial. This sux…badly.
Paying because I support Hulu
I had the same experience as the customer who e-mailed them. I’ve paid, because I wanted to get Hulu on my iPhone and PS3. Paying 10 bucks to be able to cancel my FiOS TV is a great deal to me.
I was also underwhelmed with Hulu Plus’ offerings. They have less content than Hulu.
But, I have been a huge fan of Hulu for a while. I don’t care, for the most part, what my companies think/want/plan.
Hulu:
Are they offering me a product/service I want? Yes
Are they charging me a fair price (Free/ad supported)? absolutely
Hulu Plus:
Are they offering me a product/service I want? ability to watch TV on my phone/PS3 Yes, tho I want more content
Are they charging me a fair price? 10 dollars, yes.
I’m not pleased with the current product I’ve been given, but like any other product from a company who has made me happy in the past, I’m willing to give them a little time(a month maybe), to fix the issue. I consider what they have given me so far worth the investment of 10-20 dollars.
They offfered something which could be free for a price, and I considered that price worthwhile for wehat I was getting even though it was possible to get the same content I wanted for free. when I no longer feel like paying for the free content is worth it, I’ll stop. It seems like this has been what Mike has been preaching all along.
Some content "web only"
So I was really excited to get Hulu+. It meant watching stuff on my iPhone instead of dragging my computer on the road.
But the only show I REALLY wanted to watch yesterday on a 3 hour bus ride was Persons Unknown.
But for some contractual reason that show is available ONLY on the web. Not iPhone or iPad.
Why is God’s name am I paying for LESS content on the iPhone?
My subscription ends tonight.
What I learned from the Hulu Plus list of available shows was less that the list was lacking, and more than I don’t actually like most TV programs so what the hell should I care whether it’s good or not in the first place.
It would be one thing if the people Hulu was trying to make happy was film studios with decades-long back catalogs of impressive footage. But they’re not. All they’re dealing with are a bunch of idiots who’ve way overvalued their own crappy products.
And this is the exact reason I believe Netflix or some other start up will disrupt Hulu so badly as to make them irrelevant. They see the opportunities, they just aren’t able to jump on it, bringing down the entire system that their overlords want to keep in place.
I like Hulu, but there’s no way I’d pay for it. I already pay for Netflix, and that’s enough for me.
If Hulu simply had the same content, but without the commercials, it might be worth paying for. But there’s no way I’m going to pay for Hulu Plus as it stands now.
I got rid of Hulu Plus as well b/c the difference between Hulu and Netflix was embarrassing. Netflix is the same price yet ad-free and a MUCH better selection
If Hulu wants to stop the terrible reviews, they need to DUMP the Ads for paying customers and increase their selection
Otherwise, more will decide to stay away
I got a message too
Just asked for my SyFy full season shows and support for android.
Hi Sepharo,
Thanks for writing in and I’m we don’t currently have the content you want.
I can tell you that we want to add all of the content we can but there are licensing issue we have to overcome first. As some background, when we launched the free Hulu.com service, we obtained licensing to stream content direct from the PC – and only from the PC. With the launch of the subscription-based Hulu Plus service, we had to start over from scratch and acquire licensing to stream content on TVs, smart phones, and tablets as well as PCs. We tried to get as much overlap as possible (we want it all, of course), but there were some exceptions that we’ll continue to work to resolve. Any time we can push content to Plus, we do and we have heard a lot of feedback about SyFy’s content library.
The Droid is awesome and I can tell you that in regards to new devices we intend to move onto as many devices as posisble. Customer demand is really the strongest force in determining which devices will be launched and when, and the Droid users have been adamant in their requests for support.
Plus will be getting better and offering more as we move to Public launch but if you genuinely are unhappy with our service let me know and I’ll see what I can do to help you out.
Thanks,
Jordan
Hulu Support
Re: I got a message too
You can watch Hulu on an android phone.
It takes a little messing around but all you have to do is make hulu think your on a pc(desktop) your user agent string on your browser reports you as a mobile user and locks you out. Just change it to report you as a desktop. There are several tutorials on how to do this online just google them.
As far as Hulu plus is concerned all they seem to do is cut off a lot of the content that used to be free then make you pay for it. No way I’m shelling out $10 or anything so i can watch old re-runs with commercials that are freely available elsewhere. Frankly I was a big fan of Hulu but now I’m going elsewhere as it just makes me mad anymore.
Re: I got a message too
You can watch Hulu on an android phone.
It takes a little messing around but all you have to do is make hulu think your on a pc(desktop) your user agent string on your browser reports you as a mobile user and locks you out. Just change it to report you as a desktop. There are several tutorials on how to do this online just google them.
As far as Hulu plus is concerned all they seem to do is cut off a lot of the content that used to be free then make you pay for it. No way I’m shelling out $10 or anything so i can watch old re-runs with commercials that are freely available elsewhere. Frankly I was a big fan of Hulu but now I’m going elsewhere as it just makes me mad anymore.
Re: I got a message too
You can watch Hulu on an android phone.
It takes a little messing around but all you have to do is make hulu think your on a pc(desktop) your user agent string on your browser reports you as a mobile user and locks you out. Just change it to report you as a desktop. There are several tutorials on how to do this online just google them.
As far as Hulu plus is concerned all they seem to do is cut off a lot of the content that used to be free then make you pay for it. No way I’m shelling out $10 or anything so i can watch old re-runs with commercials that are freely available elsewhere. Frankly I was a big fan of Hulu but now I’m going elsewhere as it just makes me mad anymore.
They might as well give up
They might as well hand the reigns over to NetFlix and/or Apple because if they have no unfettered access to episode, they have ZERO competitive advantage. At least with NetFlix, you get the option of waiting for the DVD to come out as a last resort.
I think the content companies are stupid too because the harder they make it to access content, the less likely it will be seen. ESPECIALLY in this era of streaming, YouTube and NetFlix. There’s so much content out there that alot of it won’t be missed if it’s in accessible.
Hulu WAS a great idea. I was paying up until I lost the entire series of episodes I was watching IN ONE DAY. I cancelled the service and went to a better service provider that happens to be free…. torrents. Content companies cannot legitimately call it theft when they have voluntarily withdrawn content from me that I was willing to pay for!
hulu
wait a minute here people, netflix and hulu had a secret doorway to ps3 and 360 for over 1 year and that’s through a new thing called play on, if you want this on your ps3 or crappy 360 which microsoft embarrassingly remade several times, get play on onto your pc, look up an online guide about how to make it show up on your ps3 and/or 360. my only complaint is why is all the adult swim shows like inuyasha and naruto in a foreign language? hulu please make a language option for the videos in which we desire. oh and hulu.com you may wanna fix that sign up, log in stuff above the search button on the right. because ps3s can’t read it. and i’d like to use my ps3 to get to the log in button to add ques. but somehow i found a way over to the log in pg, thanks to google, but please fix it 4 future references.
Re: hulu
Lol crappy 360? Microsoft remade? There’s a new ps3 every two weeks…and they still cant seem to sale enough.
I cancelled my huluplus after 10 minutes. The shows I wanted to watch were all web only which defeated the purpose. If I’m at a pc then i already have 15 sites I can watch what i want for free already. I wanted to stream to my phone all the shows that I miss like Psych which are harder to find on mobile internet. The site is very hit or miss though. Sometimes there are only current seasons, every season but the current, or no season at all. At least with netflix i can get a disc if the season im on isnt available to stream.
Hulu PLus
Is perfect because it is affordable in price, for only 9.99 you have all the best lines television Fox – CBS etc you can watch an episode as many times as you want.
I buy Google TV and and returned to Hulu and Fancast are blocked, ridiculous, but so is …
Listen
Read phonetically
commercials
I got 6 commercials in a 17 min long piece of content. I subscribe to Netflix and just got a trial of Hulu plus. Hulu’s interface is better but expecting me to pay a monthly fee to have ads for glade plugins streamed at me is really not worth it. Sources of free TV shows are better even if I cant watch instantly. Netflix delivers content without ads, why cant hulu?
now i have to buy a tv i cant afford thanks
and i love how it says “annonymous coward” as a way to push me to putting my information so i can potentially be rushed with fee’s and advertisements i dont care for. losers
I did not enjoy my Hulu Plus experience. I canceled the trial before it was even over.
My reasons:
* WAY too MANY commercials
* Mcdonalds caramel mocha commercial shows up NON STOP. Enough is enough guys, not only did you make me hate McDonald’s but also the actors in that commercial as well.
* Not enough shows
In short.. Hulu Plus is nowhere near where they should be. If I wanted this many commercials to intrude upon watching my shows I would have stuck with the regular ass tv.
Hey dumbasses! NETFLIX!
Also tried (and canceled) the Hulu+ trial when it appeared on my Roku box. The service dropped out or looped back to a previous show segment quite a few times; forcing me to re-ignore the same commercials several times. And $8 a month for the privilege? Beyond lame.
what a bag of crap this is. I was at the end of a series and now I cant finish it without frggn paying money, I dont have extra cash for this stuff! GRRRRRRRRRR
Re: Re:
also, I am not an anonymous coward. so fuck you techdirt.
Are people forgetting that you pay comcast and other cable companies upwards of $60 to $150 per month for commercials in excess of half the episode you are watching. Remember a show called LOST? There were more commercials than there was episode. Hulu commercials last a total of 30 seconds, thats not even long enough to go drop a duce before the show comes back on.
Re: Re:
you must work for hulu. nice try.
Plus will fail
Plus will fail because all they have going for them is TV Shows that are currently airing. Since most of the broadcasts let you watch the full episodes online anyways, there is no point in spending 8.99 a month for something that offers less than reg Hulu and has commercials (even if they are 30 sec). Hulu has lost their competitive advantage over current TV episodes and should consider selling to Netflix while an offer can still be high.
Criterion Collection .
BOY DO I FEEL STUPID BUYING THE LATEST ROKU w/HULU PLUS
I herd that the 2100x model of the ROXU (either of the 3 models) would offer Hulu “PLUS” however I thought this would be in addition to HULU that from everything I have read offered on the prior or older model (maybe just firmware upgrade) BUT HULU free IN NOT ON THE NEWER MODEL ROKU.
I’m so glad I found this page. I was getting ready to fork over the VISA card and yahoo’d “whats better NETFLIX or HULU PLUS I think this link was the third down.
I thought the big boys could snuff out us little guys with a big opinion. Glad to ee free speech doing what it was meant to. There are to many similar opinions for merit not to apply.
My VISA card will stay in my pocket for now. I’ve only looked through plus a little but noticed 3 movies from 2.99 to 3.99 that were also available on NETFLIX. Who in their right mind (as a movie watcher) would pay per movie. Who knows maybe NETFLIX will triple their prices now that we have purchased all these streaming devices.
Maybe they are targeting soap opera fans. They must have a strategy.
I can tell you one thing for sure. I WOULD HAVE NEVER bought this new ROKU BOX XD|S April 6 2011 if I knew ROKU dropped HULU FREE. ROKU must make a royalty on H PLUS’s sales. Why else would they drop FREE. When word gets out that HULU FREE is no longer available potential ROKU USERS should look elsewherer…
Leave it to me to mess that prior post up. When I compared prices of a movie it was NETFLIX to AMZON however my comment that hulu free is no longer available on the new ROKUs is correct. Amazon charges more.
Hey ROKU better be glad that you made the firmware upgrade where your ROKUs usb port now streams usb video and music. Or I would return this box for sure.
I don’t want BJ’s to blacklist me otherwise this box would go bye bye.
Now all I need to buy is another laptop where all the keys work.
I
Go for free linker sites instead of crappy hulu+
I decided to try the 2 week trial on xbox.. And was very disappointed. A lot of web only and nothing that I can’t get normally on hulu (norm). But I would never pay for a service that shows my tv shows.. I would just check out anoobie.com or fastpasstv.eu or surfthechannel.com for free streaming video of all my shows..
ttyl
Thanks alot
Thanks alot for all your stupid responses about how they should limit the content and make a reason for paying more.
Now the amount of Hulu Plus content is more like 60-70% while the standard hulu content is 30-40%.
Thanks! keep your suggestions to your self.
Re: Thanks alot
alot is actually not a word. a lot is what you’re looking for
Re: Thanks alot
@ James
Dude, you really need to get a grip on reality. Hulu+ is a disgusting internet scam that is masquerading as a Netflix.
…just sayin. lol.
HULU PLUS LIES
I signed up for two movies they had advertised, first being trainspotting. Well when I signed up both my movies were expired and not available. Well don’t freaking advertise them as available to get my to sign up. I’m really missing the point of HULU. Don’t know how they will be around much lnoger.
ijunk
lol no offense, stop wasting your money on apple products.
There weak proccesors Don’t live up to intel or AMD, And hardly can be called more then a kids toy. But in thir deffence hulu just a couple years back FINALLY got set up so they can play on laptops. So that does say somthing for their streaming values as it stands. Even on a computer their playback is low rate garbage anyway, so either way youre not missing much, try finding other sites, theres others out there way more updated and without the restrictions hulu suffers and WAY better playback. hulu pretty much sucks.
is hulu trying to get money for crack?
Shows that were free last week are no longer free. Hulu has always just been a free alternative to Netflix which also kindof sucks. Now I can’t even watch the majority of SouthPark re-runs for free. What a joke. I’ll have to reactivate my Netflix account.
Advertising issues
I know through my own dealings with Hulu that they have issues monetizing their content, and that is part of their problem. Some of their content owners (such as NBC) have less issues. The reason is because they have refused to embrace more advanced advertising technology from other vendors that would improve the value and scabalitiy of their advertising inventory. Instead, they insist that all advertising go through their creative services. They are not equipped to be an advertising company and therefore do a horrible job at monetizing their inventory as evidenced by things like repeating ads. Advertisers just LOVE that (sarcasm). So they are really hurting themselves, and ultimately may go out of business if they don’t get their act together and accept outside help on the advertising part.
Whiners!
Okay folks. I am going to do the unspeakable really quickly. I am going to defend Hulu+. First, it’s $8/month. Get over it people. If you can’t easily afford that much then you shouldn’t be getting luxuries like this anyway. Second- there is a reason why they allow you to have the service for a month for free. It is so that you can see if you want to spend the whopping 8 bucks on the product. Try before you buy. Third, part of what you are paying for with the subscription service is the convenience of having the ability to stream through a number of devices, including mobile devices.
Now for a solution to the problem that is ALSO not going to be popular: stop offering free hulu. It’s simple. With the revenue generated from plus membership, hulu would easily be able to renegotiate contracts with its partners because they would be able to offer them a lot of money. Just like Netflix. There is a reason that the Netflix model has not been bettered in any other area of media . It is the best. OFFER the trial service for free. Then if people really want to see their shows they can pony up the $96 they will need to enjoy it for a year. Stop offering the free version, and then those of us who are happy to cough up the cash for hulu+ won’t have to deal w/ “web only” BS or ads.
Re: Whiners!
ur such an ass, and a stuck up prick. hulu was fine the way it was, with maybe the exception of needing more episodes. so looks like ur the cry baby
Re: Whiners!
Hey man that is a great idea! I bet if they got rid of free then they could at least cut down ads considerably if not do away with them completely. I was reading some about cable/dish/dsl TV and how costs for sports is a major portion of operating expenses. I don’t give a shite about sports so your pay version only idea sounds like a winner to me. Cheap cable TV without all the crap I don’t care about. Perfect. I’d give $20 a month for an add-free Hulu Plus with ALL shows offered available on ALL devices. I’d expect to at least be able to have a whole season’s worth of shows before any expired. Anyone at Hulu listening?
Hulu Plus has too many ads
Way to many ads for subscribers. Very annoying. At least with Tivo, you can skip through the ads. Hulu Plus has way to many ads and commercials. They are making a fortune off of subscriber dues and are getting greedy. Cable companies are losing customers in droves…good luck Hulu.
RE: Dustin and Some more.
Dustin I sort of know where you’re coming from, but no. They need to get rid of ads then they can do what they want. Hulu Plus still has ads!?!?! How ridiculous is that. You can’t even compare them to netflix because they still have ads. They should also not be charging so much per month. There’s a reason why they are only making money off the people who probably forget to opt out of their free trial and then switch it off. If they made it 2/3 bucks a month people would actually do it! Hulu is not smart! Read this review to prove it: http://sensibleculture.com/2011/08/01/what-to-watch-on-hulu-free/
hulu plus
It would be nice even if hulu plus still showed all the context that hulu has but only keep the 6 episodes of popular shows instead of the whole season. That would make it even alot better. On my streaming media device, you can only get hulu plus so I still can’t get the current episodes onto the tv and can only either watch them on my computer or ipod.
Why I will never buy hulu plus
So beside the fact that I already have a subscription to netflix and a dvr, why would I pay for something that barely keeps up with any of my shows. This is why I didn’t mind making a hulu account, but if I need to start paying for something that they were giving me for free for a couple of years, then ( pardon my french but) What the FUCK are they thinking. Don’t get me wrong I think some of the hulu plus ideas are great but it sounds like they’re false advertising. I MIGHT pay for a hulu plus account if they got all of the shows and was commercial free and didn’t re-rout me the show’s original host’s page. Not only that I’ve been running into the same problem a few other subscribers have, they’ll list a show and then not have any of the episodes. Personally hulu was a great idea, but they took the original and messed it all up. The hulu plus is messing with the regular hulu and why pay for something when I could just do what the hulu site already does ( re-rout me to the original host’s web pag).
Free
Pft, Hulu was great when it was free….but if only people realized how easy it is to find any show..any movie with just your handy dandy fingertips and google ; )
Gotta love my google talent ^ ^!
Here’s a website..only a few shows for ya…but really its not that hard to find portal sites for any other shows ; )
http://www.free-tv-video-online.me/
Hulu plus really does blow
Its not just that it has a horrible selection but the streaming is ssuch garbage… Even with an upgraded comcast connection half the time it skips after watching a few episode of anything…
The thing I find most annoying is that if I have to search around a lot in an episode to find the place where I leff off (the resume feature fails often) they’ll keep making me watch commercial as if fast forwarding or reversing the equivlanet of the minutes between commercials is the same as watching all that content. It ends up you having to watch about 8 minutes of commercials especially since their little preview stills menu is so glitchy.
I have Netflix too and love it, however, they don’t most current shows and if they do have the series there is often only just enough episodes to get you hooked (with like half a season of shows or less). And there’s no telling how long it will take them to get new episodes. They just updated family guys after about what seems 3 years .
Hulu’s ads actually annoy me to the point that Ill just go to the pirate bay out of spite.
Well, it’s some two years later and Hulu still sucks. Tonight I figured I’d give Fringe a try. I kind of assumed it wouldn’t be available on Netflix, and it wasn’t. Without getting my hopes up I turned to Hulu, where I see five season four episodes. Well, that does me no good, but for being free it’s not terrible. What if I were to throw 8 bucks at them to start watching Fringe right now? Win/win, right? Wrong, apparently. I’d get the same five episodes they were offering for free. Five “rolling” episodes, as part of a content library for a paid service. Uhh, nope.
Cancelled my Hulu + Ads Paid account. I thought maybe they would have a more expansive selection of TV Shows, maybe I could watch some of the UK’s “Young Ones” or get into “Dexter”, false. Hulu is pretty much uselesss… And their paltry offering of movies is offensive.
Cancelled my Hulu + Ads Paid account. I thought maybe they would have a more expansive selection of TV Shows, maybe I could watch some of the UK’s “Young Ones” or get into “Dexter” false. Hulu is pretty much uselesss… And their paltry offering of movies is offensive.
Pfff
Hulu plus dosn’t suck, Hulu itself sucks. A bunch of americans hogging all the good stuff and screwing the international community out of entertainment.
Boingggg
The previous comment leads me to believe you should have a “Stupid- Doesn’t make any sense” button. Hulu is obviously a scam, and the only reason we pay for it is because we only have basic cable but what the freak does being American have to do with anything? Sounds like a jealous European.
*side note: not all Europeans are jealous and ignorant
Hulu suck
Holy B@ll5 hulu plus sucks so bad its unreal. Only good thing about it is that its on xbox live but id rather cut off a testicle then keep that worthless piece of dog$HIIITe service
HUH?
Hulu Plus is great. Well was, it’s been very laggy the last week or so.
But, if you pay for Hulu Plus for “extra content,” clearly you are missing the point completely.
The only reason to pay for Hulu Plus is so that you can watch TV through Hulu in your bedroom, on you phone, on an iPad, or anywhere away from the computer. Who told anyone that they would get extra content? I’ve never even heard that!
The marketing plan was, step 1) get college kids to use it free, because they usually have a bigger computer monitor in their dorm room than a TV. 2) after it’s popular, charge for making it usable in any reasonable way a normal person watch TV (“Plus” is only to access from devices other than your computer).
Although, since it won’t play more than 10 seconds without pausing now (even though my bandwidth is the same), I’m ready to cancel my subscription.
Yes But
I spent over a year without cable, I was willing to pay the Hulu Plus price because there were only certain shows I watched. They gave me new Family Guy, American Dad, Daily Show and (New-ish) Tosh & South Park.
Now I have cable again… and find myself paying $100+ a month again for channels I don’t care about and shows I don’t watch.
I hate hulu
hulu
No such thing as a free lunch.
I prefer you tube at this point.
Commercial TV sucks.
Hulu makes no sense
Doesn’t matter anymore once hulu puts into the whole needing a cable subscription to watch, it will die. Hulu+ sucks, Netflix sucks. Reason being is the networks and studios control what gets streamed. Netflix lost too much content for me to keep. Hulu+ forces you to watch 90% of the content on the web. Oh in order to watch on the web you need a up to date flash player. Old computer, PS3? no dice. Not that it matters with the current shows on tv all being staged/fake reality shows I see really no point in any of those things.
30 seconds
I downloaded the Hulu Plus for my Xbox, (free 7 day membership). I thought, free for 7 days? Why not give it a shot. However, after seeing Hulu Plus only had 200 Horror/Thiller movies, most of which were complete fucking garbage, and 80ish Science Fiction videos, which were equally worthless, I canceled my subscription within a minute of subscribing. If Hulu Plus is going to carry the same selection of videos as a Public Library, they have rude awakening coming ahead of them if they expect people to actually pay for their service. What a JOKE.
It takes two hours, at least, to watch A 30 minute show.
SO FAR HULU SUCKS
I PAID FOR HULU PLUS. BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN AN ALL MY CHILDREN & ONE LIFE TO LIVE FAN FOR MORE YEARS THAN I WANT TO MENTION,ALSO A GENERAL HOSPITAL FAN. WHEN THEY TOOK OF THE ABOVE I BOYCOTED ABC,IM SURE IT DIDNT HURT THEM, BUT I DID IT ANY.SO I HAVE BEEN SO DISSAPOINTED IN NOT BEING ABLE TO WATCH FROM THE BEGINNING!!!!SO COULD SOMEONE PLEASE GET THIER _____ TOGETHER AND GET THE SHOWS THAT THEY PROMISED ON LINE,SO WE CAN GET WHAT WE ARE PAYING FOR!!!! AJ.
I honestly now despise Hulu. The only reason I got it was to watch one piece. And suddenly it says it is going to expire
And somehow Netflix manages to do what Hulu does, but better, without commercials, and charges a single monthly fee to do it. The fact is, News Corp and Disney don’t WANT people watching Hulu. That would take viewership away from the commercial-laden TV channels — along with the entire network of people paying them for the rights to broadcast their content, from the local OTA stations up to the big aggregators and satellite networks. And if people DO watch Hulu, then by golly they are getting these ads shoved RIGHT down their throats! I just tried to watch a 22 minute anime episode that had 1:30 of commercials in the first 1:30 of the show, then another 4:30 of commercials crammed into the next 18 minutes of show (because all the ads of course are placed before the end credits). That’s 6 minutes of commercials in 19.5 minutes of show (not counting end credits). 31% commercials. That’s at least on par with, if not worse than, television.
The Netflix model works, Netflix itself is proof of that, and Amazon Prime streaming video is proof that it works twice. Amazon is actually a little cheaper than Netflix on a month to month basis, and has, at this time, a better selection of TV shows IMO. So that’s 2 companies that don’t even own the content they are streaming (an advantage that rests solely with Hulu at this time) and are still able to make lots of money at it, even after licensing fees paid to, in some cases, the very 2 companies that own Hulu. It seems like Disney and News Corp should be able to make money at the same model as well.
So, either they are able to make money with a Netflix model and are choosing not to, or are not able to monetize it in a non-annoying way and are desperately trying to scrape what cash they can back out of the huge investment that was Hulu before the board dumps it.
Either way, no good for the consumer of Hulu. It really just shows how stuck in the old way of monetizing TV and movies the media empires really are. They could charge us directly for the viewership of streaming video, but for some reason would rather get paid by advertisers instead. Cut out the middleman already!
random blocking of shows
Random blocking of shows and saying they’re new episodes when they’re not
Ads
Unattractive for me. Offers no ad-free pricing plan. We prefer mlb streaming & Nflx. If ads, customer should be paid.
Hulu Plus sucks
all the shows I watch are either not available on Hulu Plus or only available as web content and has to be viewed on my computer I will NOT be purchasing Hulu Plus
Re:
couldn’t care less*
cancelled
I didn’t even get through 3 hours of my free trial. The amount of ads combined with the horrible speed (or lack thereof) led me to question why anyone would even consider keeping their Plus account past the free trial. I can download a full 1080p TV episode from any given torrent site faster than it took Hulu to buffer (in HD) the first segment of the episode. Unsurprisingly, the ads were shown in HD with no delays.
hulu ads
The worse tricks in the books
2013
Well it’s 2013 and Hulu is still a pile. Fact lets discuss the free version. First off nothing new has been added sense like 2008 and I’m sure sense theres nothing to show anything new ONLY on H+ then the pay isn’t any different. then you got shows that are older then dirt and CANCELED so obviously some one in the production felt the show wasn’t worth airing anymore BUT yet THEY and HULU have decided to mild all the cash they can out of the viewers on shows they them selves in Hollywood decided they don’t even link. Hulu has commercials and from what I understand they still have them on the paid version but still they beg money content out of the viewers. Seems like high way robbery to me and if any of us where to try ANY of this we would be arrested, thrown in jail and the book would be thrown at us while the key is being melted in a pot.
Thank you for listening. This is why Hulu Sucks.
2013
BUT yet THEY and HULU have decided to (mild) I meant MILK, sorry for the typo.
Boingggg
Oops accidentally posted that first,,,
Anyway what I meant to say is…
Yeah blame us Americans, obviously using Hulu in the first place enough to care to comment about it you watch our programs, why don’t you just keep your mouth shut!?
Whiners!
The ads where supposed to be there FOR the free version tard. In fact once it was announced they where going to have a paid version the ads where supposed to be taken off on the paid BUT Hulu decided keeping them would make them more money then they really needed AND TV producers got a favor by not getting bitched out by their advertisers for losing their spot advertising their products on the show. Don’t you think if they really fucking wanted to they could just keep the free version and have it programed in there to take out the ad playback when a paid account is activated or do you really still think this is 1998?
Pfff
Got news for you… Americans don’t fare much better since the most popular shows in the US are arguably on the CBS lineup. And guess what Hulu does NOT offer? Instead of whining, get yourself a decent VPN service with American servers and watch Hulu through that. If it looks like you’re in the US, you should have no problem streaming content exclusive to the American market.
Adverts
Netflix streaming? No adverts. Amazon Prime streaming? No adverts. Hulu Plus paid streaming? Adverts!! You gotta be kidding. I’m darned if I’ll pay anybody to shove advertising at me when they so obviously have the technology to avoid doing that to paying customers. And they don’t even offer their free version to ROKU. Hulu isn’t getting my dollars for sure!
Paying because I support Hulu
Hulu cunts
only reason i see
I’ve looked into getting Hulu; however, it’s a waste for me. If I didn’t have Verizon FiOS (which is only about $50/month for the tv service), I might think about using Hulu Plus. The ads aren’t that bad, since I pay verizon to show me ads while I watch shows.
The problem I have is that Hulu is no different than Verizon when it comes to new release shows. they only retain the last 5 episodes.
I would gladly purchase a Hulu Plus subscription if they would provide ALL episodes for the shows they have available. Hulu Plus execs need to grow some balls and make that a demand for their contracts with the tv studios.
Netflix may take a year to provide a show I want to watch, but at least they have every episode available. I’ll stick with netflix and just wait til next year to watch this years shows (the ones that I don’t watch live on Verizon).
Why Pay??
Also hulu has gone down for some reason, and I can find info on why anywhere, its retarrrded
episodes of The Blacklist missing from hulu plus
I watched The Blacklist pilot today and liked it. I wanted to watch the next episode, but guess what? It skipped to episode 6. Episodes 2,3,4, and 5 are missing. I’ve been paying them for 3 months now and this is the first series I thought I could get into. Then these key episodes are missing. Very frustrating. I’m going to cancel my acct.
SO FAR HULU SUCKS
I don’t have Hulu.. but they seem to be connected to share TV, which SEEMS to promise old episodes of General Hostpital.. really want to be able to watch the last 10 years or so of GH.. going back even further would be great too. I LOVE GH… can you watch old eps of GH on Hulu yet..? If you can I will glady pay for that!!! Please make these old episodes available please!!!!!!!
Huluplus
I see a lot of complaints about Hulu plus and to all u I say…..whaa whaa whaa!! 2 or three 30 second commercial spots are nothing in comparison to regular tv and I for one am happy to pay the subscription fee for Hulu and enjoy all the content that comes with it. Netflix is also rad but the difference between the two is, Hulu is new shows the night after they air on tv. Netflix is great as well and I have both, but with Netflix I have to wait almost a year sometimes for new episodes of shows to be available. I refuse to complain about either because they are both WAY better and cheaper than regular tv.
Hulu is shit, even more so than Netflix. I don’t watch generic Joe Blow movies like Transformers or Ted. The interesting movies I want to see are NEVER available. FFS even the old movies aren’t available to watch, yet I can see the trailer? I’d choose normal TV over this internet BS any day. At least through channel surfing I find a great movie then I’ll set it to record if it’s half way through. Services like Hulu and Netflix are just a cock tease imo.
Hulu sucks
No commercials on net flicks! Hulu
Sucks!!!
It so stupid we pay for it and it will not let me login
Save your money
Paying for Hulu is like burning money. It offers a tiny bit more than you can already watch, and you still have to indulge their need to put “a” commercial in every 4 minutes or so. I say “A” because it’s never just one commercial.
hulu fucking sucks
Hulu you sucks netflix got there shit together hulu go fuck yourself
your a fuckin idiot if you pay for hulu
If your paying for Hulu you should be checked into a facility for mental retardation. Your paying for little to no advantage for content thats already free.
Top of that you have shit tons of commercials that are poorly placed/targeted/repeated/bugged.
For me there is no real streaming company that is doing it right, but at least netflix is commercial free I guess.
Huluplus
I agree waaa waaa about Hulu Plus, I rather like it since I ditched cable.
stop hulu bashing
everyone is comparing Hulu to Netflix but umm you have to wait to watch everything on Netflix. Hulu is offering it the day after it airs. I got rid of my extremely ridiculous cable bill in exchange for this TEN dollar a month deal. Netflix is for the off season. People bashing it are obviously missing the point. its for people who want to replace cable not just an extra app on your phone. Yes it has setback. I wish it had current CBS shows but that is CBS being a greedy ads not Hulu. I have amazon prime, Netflix and Hulu set up on my Xbox and I still pay less than I did with. you people need to atop bitching.
Hulu lost my subscription too
I watch movies and TV to relax. But when I realized that I was stressing over the constant commercials I cancelled my Hulu plus subscription on the spot.
It happened one night when I watched commercials then the opening theme to the show and then right back to commercials agian! THATS IT I said, we’re done!
Also, I watch anime, and Hulu’s anime has very little on the list of English dubbed. Even though I can view the same shows on any other site, and in English dubb. Plus all of Hulus commercials! And they have sucked up two anime show companies and removed those companies dubbed content and jammed in Hulu’s commercial policy! Anime Network is one I cut my teeth on and they never had commercials until Hulu partnered up. They sucked up Crunchy Roll too.
This all points to profit margins and nothing else, so I boycott Hulu. The rest can do whatever you wish, it is a free country after all.
I use Netflix, no commercials, Anime Crave with no commercials or page ads for members at $5 monthly with lots of english dubb’s, and some others. Their membership is even less ‘by the year’.
HULU +
I see things have not changed in the last 4 years. I signed up to text HULU PLUS and cancelled my account less than 24 hours later? Why?
Because I am not about to pay for commercials. That’s the reason I left cable in the first place.
Because even if I didn’t mind commercials, I DO mind having them occur off-break. In TV shows the slots for commercials are programmed and there is nothing worse that having an ad miss the window then interrupt dialog in the middle of a word to try to sell you things then come back to the show. It ruins the watching experience.
Because there are so many ads streamed at me during a program that the show becomes incidental to the advertising rather than the other way around.
Because all these ads are burning bandwidth and eating into my ISP’s data cap which means I am paying for them twice. Once for the cost of an internet connection with its finite amount od data allowed without additional charges and then again to HULU.
HULU, if we are going to pay you, ditch the damned adverts. The reason Netflix has such a huge market share and customer base is that customers hate ads more then they hate outdated or slow to update content. Are you blind? WAKE UP!
I actually don’t mind the fee for hulu plus but the ads on it are ridiculous!!!! Over half of the program seems like it’s ads!!! 5+ ads are a little much
5 years later and HULU is still terrible
What the heck???
5 years later and HULU is still terrible
Indeed.
– and five years from this day – March 25, 2020 – I shall return to this forum and remind the world that Hulu continues to suck balls.
Hulu is just ok. Also tired on ads.
I was with Hulu before they had Hulu plus. I haven’t subscribed because they don’t have any good movies, they have current tv shows and season. I like it to a degree. Hulu upsets me sometimes because they put up a show on hulu and then take the show down. I also would be ok with they put other shows on even if it’s just 1 new episode a month, they don’t even do that. If you are going to have a show on hulu have new epsodes if you won’t let people watch new episodes just take the show down. I’ll take my business else where maybe shared sites.
Hulu suck Netflix is better
Why the hell is Hulu going to start the season of arrow everyone going good I been watching since it started but for some fucking reason Hulu decides to skip from episode 10 all the way to fucking episode 15 why the hell would they skip 4 fucking episode and I can’t catch up this is bullshit
do your jpb and entertain me.
In Japan company managers would commit suicide over this. Hulu
should adopt this policy. FIX IT OR IT’s AOL for you all.
Hulu
My hulu plus does not have all current episodes missing 6 & 7. Season 3 of Reign but I can watch on my on demand with xfinity
subtext
Oh yes. I am sure you spit your drink up in your keyboard. That is the most overplayed line of all time. Let me get this straight. Not only was your head tilted back drinking at the same time you were reading this and you didn’t swallow your drink like a normal person? Then, this was so funny that you spit up your drink? How old are you? 6?
Hi My Name Is Dion & Me & Girlfriend Just Moved In! I’ve Recently Got Hulu Because She Loves TV shows, But Her Show Has Aired in the beginning of December & Only 1 episode is available on Hulu ! Please help !! Should I cancel or can this be avoided? Pleased feel free to comment thanks
dropping hulu
when I canceled hulu why did I stop receiving it even though I had 3 weeks left that I payed for? netflex
didn’t do that.
Hulu is still the best option
Honestly everyone can say Hulu is overpriced and such, but look at cable. I am so grateful for streaming because cable is like 30-40$ a month for nothing. Barely anything is every on if you get the cheapest cable subscription and there are 2X as many commercials as Hulu.
It is one of the closets things to regular TV, with the newest episodes coming out each week I would definitely recommend Hulu for only $7.99 a month, you probably pay more for a Starbucks coffee. You can get two weeks free if you sign up here: http://hulu.com/r/ocjVSA
That’s what I did and if you don’t like it you can cancel before the two weeks are up and wont owe anything, but its really cheap anyways at only $7.99 a month.
If you really don’t want commercials is only like $12 / mo – Like two Starbucks coffees.
There’s also Netflix for those of you who really hate commercials. It more for older seasons of shows and all kinds of interesting movies. It’s great cause you can just sit for hours on a lazy day and watch a whole season if you want to. You can sign up here for a month free, $7.99 a month, and cancel at any time as well: https://signup.netflix.com/
I personally have both and love them a lot. I don’t have cable, which is four times more expensive than both of these. Plus nothing is ever on TV, but with Hulu and Netflix you can always find something.
If your getting rid of cable, I would get both, or at least start with Hulu because it’s the most similar to regular TV.
Hulu+ censors all the cool shows, movies, and barely has all the seasons, buffers all the time
I’m an adult, why would I pay for censored shows, and censored movies. Hulu is garbage. Censoring? Really? Why pay for censored TV shows and movies. Total shit, lame sauce, censored shows. I’m sure Hulu is going to keep loosing customers over their censoring everything. I’m done with Hulu. I might as well just flat out buy all the seasons and movies I want to see. At least then I don’t have to worry about censoring. What is the deal Hulu? You think every adult in the world hasn’t heard cuss words, or blood, violence, and sex? Seriously?
Hulu is still the best option
Wow..obvious paid astroturfing is obvious.
Hulu can't keep a steady stream if their company depended on it, which it should!
I gladly don’t pay for Hulu, wife does, and encourages me to use it. I love Netflix more for a number of reasons. One, it doesn’t take 45 minutes to watch a TV show from all of the buffering and cutting out. Secondly, I can continue to stream from an earlier point, whereas with Hulu it’s like I have the first generation Xbox for an SD YouTube stream. Even though Netflix annoys me constantly asking if I’m “Still Watching” (obviously that’s why it’s on) but as I say, it’s almost worth it because you can bet your ass you’ll have an authentication failure that stops your stream.
Hulu will work just fine for like 4 days, then it starts its fricken freezing bullshit for like 3 days. Rinse repeat, so frustrating. Just gets under your skin when your getting into a show, and freeze… OMG wtf lol..
subtext
(Starts reading) Laying ground work for a possible joke. Feels smile muscles starting to constrict… (Keeps reading). Great satirical build, just about at the punch line! Starting to preemptively smile… Guessing something about “that white fluid isn’t milk stuck in your keyboard”… (finishes reading). Ohh… You’re just an unhappy douche with no sense of humor… (sulks in seat and starts to cry)