Reuters has gotten the rumor mill in full swing today by posting that a premium, pay-for Hulu is headed to the Xbox 360 and iPad soon.
The news agency is citing two sources close to Hulu that say the site will offer a "premium" service, which will charge a monthly subscription on the popular devices in the very near future.
On the PC, Hulu is currently free, with ad-support. However, ... [ read the full article ]
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"Some believe Hulu's plans is a recipe for disaster: "Many consumers already pay $100 or more monthly for TV, telephony and high-speed Internet access and are unlikely to welcome an incremental fee merely to watch from the Internet some of the programs they already get," said Phil Leigh, an analyst with Inside Digital Media."
Yes, some people pay more than $100 just for TV service...and then there are people like me that refuse to pay $100 a month for TV service that only works at home, and which only works with a cable company DVR from 1999 that was a piece of junk when it was made. I would be happy to pay $10 a month for a online-only cable-tv type service, so long as it had enough content (if it is just stuff I can get from an antenna, then no sale).
The only problem is the platform. There is no way in **** that I am going to buy an iPad, and there is even less chance that I will buy a xbox360. Why not have PC support? I bet there are a lot of people who would pay for the service just so they could watch at work (most of hulu's current viewers). You can make all the justifications you want for not having PS3, android, or wii support...but to exclude the largest potential customer base is a recipe for failure...and if a big company fails big, it prevents others from doing it right for years to come. I really hope they get their **** together, as I want this service...or at least I want one of the copy-cat services that will appear if this is successful.
I think they should just drop the business model of monthly service charge and just support these services with ads like real network tv. SouthParkStudios.com has every episode online for free yet Xbox Live still charges to download them. I guess some idiots must pay for it. People will keep going to other sites, even pirate sites for this stuff until they realize it's just not worth what they want to charge for it. The free market has spoken. If they make it easy to view and don't nickle and dime me for every little thing, I will watch.
