If Google TV Has To Pay To Make Hulu Available To Viewers, Will Mozilla Have To Pay To Access Hulu Via Firefox?
from the yeah,-that'll-work dept
Ah, Hulu. The online TV streaming service has been leading a life of contradiction from day one. It's been trying to build a service that can successfully "compete with free," while being owned by the TV companies, who are scared to death of cannibalizing their own business. We've discussed in the past how this puts Hulu in an impossible position. The fact that it regularly has to have its engineers block access to any device or software that surfs the web over a TV is just one ridiculous example. Danny Sullivan perhaps sums it up best in his review of Google TV, after discovering that Hulu is (of course) blocking access to anyone using Google TV:Hey Hulu -- you kind of suck. I'm not trying to access you from Google TV. I'm trying to access you using a web browser, which just happens to run through Google TV. Explain to me again why if I hook my computer up to my TV, and navigate to Hulu to watch the shows you offer for free, that's OK. But if I use my Google TV computer, that same free content is verboten -- and the only way for me to get to it is if in the future, you decide to make the free content available through your not-so-free $10 per month Hulu Plus service that's not even available beyond special invites on your own site.Admittedly, Hulu is apparently getting pressure from the TV companies to do these blocks, but it still makes no sense. All things like Boxee and Google TV are doing is providing a browser. As Danny notes, if I just hooked up my laptop to the same TV, I could watch Hulu just fine. Why is it a problem if it's using a different piece of hardware? It makes no sense.
Here's a thought. Enough of blocking Google TV and apparently other services like Boxee. Either block EVERYONE on the web or block no one, because in the end, you turn people who love you when they reach you on their computers (like me) into people who hate you when they're blocked in other places (like me).
Of course, Google is now negotiating with the networks to "allow" their content to be viewed on Google TV. Is it just me or is this extremely troubling? How would people react if, say, the New York Times suddenly announced that it would not be viewable on Dell computers or in Firefox, unless Dell or Mozilla paid up? People would go nuts. Yet, that's exactly what is happening here.
In the meantime, we've already covered Hulu's ridiculous paywall plans, which even the company admits completely suck. Rumors are now spreading that so few people are interested in getting pretty much nothing for $10/month, that Hulu is now planning to cut the fee in half. Of course, if they're blocking access to random browsers for whatever ridiculous reason (and still not going ad free), then why would anyone pay?
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Filed Under: blocks, browsers, google tv, internet, tv
Companies: google, hulu
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I think the vast majority of Hulu users wouldn't mind paying $5-10/month if we felt we were getting something in return - Easily accessible, No commercials, longer retention period of shows, access from ANY device, etc....
They're shooting themselves in the foot with these ridiculous restrictions. They need someone with vision who will actually listen to what consumers want.
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Yeah they are pretty much boned...
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Ugh
Netflix does everything they can to push their content everywhere. By the time the networks let Hulu do the same, it'll be too late. They're really pissing away a great opportunity.
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Re: Ugh
Making not suck at all would be better.
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Re: Ugh
From the perspective of Hulu, it is logical. Hulu has two masters, its customers and its owners (i.e. the companies which provide the content). Hulu is trying to balance the demands of the two. Lean too far towards what the customers want -- give them more, unrestricted content -- and you piss off the owners. Lean too far towards the owners -- don't give content away for free that is being sold to other parties for good money -- and you piss off your customers.
No, it's not logical in the grand scheme of things that Hulu would block Google TV, but if they don't, they'd have their content yanked. If you were a big cable company paying through the nose for a show to appear on your service, what would you think if you found out your customers were just going out and buying Google TV and getting the same content for free? Sure, the cable companies and the content companies are burying their heads in the sand by pretending that the world is the same as it was before the Internet, so what they're doing isn't really logical, but I can at least see why Hulu is doing what it's doing just to try to survive another day.
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torrent of nonsense
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Re: torrent of nonsense
Technology is fun.
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Shouldn't this be illegal?
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Re: Shouldn't this be illegal?
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Re: Shouldn't this be illegal?
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mmm, bacon
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Re: mmm, bacon
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Unstable features
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not innocent
apologies for repeating myself mike, but
hulu is the tv companies.
every single kerfuffle hulu has been involved in with its customers, it has done the exact same song and dance: we love our customers but we're being forced into this.
please...stop listening to them cry wolf.....and stop repeating their press releases.
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Hulu doesn't work
At this point, my belief is that Hulu is broken (sadly).
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