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Would You Pay for Hulu?

Hankster

Hankster

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jan 30, 2008
2,475
440
Washington DC
There's been a lot of buzz about when Hulu.com will be available on iPhone. But, we all know the issue with the broadband requirements for this type of service. Personally, I love Hulu and watch it all the time including connecting my MacBook to my flat screen.

Would you pay a small fee a month if it required extra bandwidth to run Hulu on your iPhone?
 
It would be nice if they offer it for free.
But I'm not sure about the price because that will be the first of its kind as an app to a mobile phone arena. So its a tough one.

I'm aware of TV show telecast over mobile TV but remember, Hulu is much more than just TV shows.
 
NO. I already pay for "unlimited" data for the iPhone. Data for the iPhone is already too expensive IMO... costs as much as cheap cable internet.
 
Hankster said:
There's been a lot of buzz about when Hulu.com will be available on iPhone. But, we all know the issue with the broadband requirements for this type of service. Personally, I love Hulu and watch it all the time including connecting my MacBook to my flat screen.

Would you pay a small fee a month if it required extra bandwidth to run Hulu on your iPhone?
Click to expand...

No, I'd just wait until I get on my Mac. I ain't paying for something that is free.
 
Hulu is not going to be free much longer. When Rubert Murdoch announced that WSJ would cost money, he said the same about Hulu.
 
strike1555 said:
Hulu is not going to be free much longer. When Rubert Murdoch announced that WSJ would cost money, he said the same about Hulu.
Click to expand...

They are not making Hulu a paid service, they are beta testing a subscription service for those who want to do away with the ads.

Both free and paid services will be offered. At least that is the idea. Honestly, if Hulu starts charging and does away with free viewing, I will just quit visiting Hulu, and I assume many will do the same.
 
If they make Hulu a paid service than they just push more people to use the sites that host content illegally. At least with Hulu, content providers are making some money through advertisements. They'd be making a bad move if they made Hulu a paid service.

Adding a subscription service to remove the ads is a good idea, though. A lot of people would jump at the chance to not have to view the ads when watching shows, if the price was right (I'd imagine under $10 would be the sweet spot, something like $7.99 a month). Making the entire site paid-only, though, would be a terrible business decision.

To comment on the app, I would pay a nominal fee ($1.99) only if I could use it over the 3G network. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother.
 
No, not at all. I would like to have a Hulu for iPhone app, but I wouldn't use it enough to justify paying for it, especially since I usually use it connected to my television.
 
Fee for more bandwidth? No. I don't really use that much already. When the YouTubers get charged the fee, then maybe me.

What AT&T and others need to do is get away from this "one size fits all" data plan. If all you want to do is use e-mail and basic Web sites on your phone, $30 is overkill. Charge $10/month for maybe 500MB or 1GB of traffic per month. Bump it up some for people who use a lot of streaming radio, maybe some streaming video. Then you can get to the current plan, and then for $40 offer a "balls to the wall" plan that lets you do anything and everything (hello, tethering) for $50 a month.
 
Nope. I could live without Hulu. Besides, The Office is not as funny as it used to be.
 
I'm confused. Who would I be paying this fee to? Hulu? It doesn't cost Hulu any more to stream to an iPhone than to a PC or Mac, and they're showing me ads to support the costs. AT&T? I already pay for unlimited data I barely use, which already includes such bandwidth-intensive activities as video streaming via YouTube, VoIP, etc. Why should I pay again?

I'm really waiting for Netflix to release an iPhone app for streaming video. I'm all over that.
 
I wouldn't pay for Hulu on the iPhone. Even over wifi, it likely wouldn't run well anyway. I would be reluctant to pay for Hulu on my mac if they start charging either--unless they greatly expanded their offering to include shows like "True Blood" and added more of a back catalog. Then I'd consider it--depending on the price.

I've often thought I'd be willing to pay HBO $14.99 a month for online content (their cable price) if they offered it.
 
The mystery to me is why can't they just treat it like a typical channel. Have the same type and amount of commercials. People have never had a problem with this before. Much of the stuff they already show is for free over the air. This is just going to force people back into using torrents again.

Rupert Murdoch has a dream where you basically have to pay to go to any website. Sorry, Rupert, that dream will never come to fruition.
 
str1f3 said:
The mystery to me is why can't they just treat it like a typical channel. Have the same type and amount of commercials. People have never had a problem with this before. Much of the stuff they already show is for free over the air. This is just going to force people back into using torrents again.

Rupert Murdoch has a dream where you basically have to pay to go to any website. Sorry, Rupert, that dream will never come to fruition.
Click to expand...

Probably because this is their opportunity to get a lot more money. Why give you a program for free with ads when they can make you pay $2.99 per episode that *also* has ads?

There are already a few apps in itunes that you have to buy that use this model--that also have ads. Ridiculous. I'll just start reading more.
 
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