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How Hulu Lost Its Place In a Netflix World

25 points by gaiusparx 16y ago

MountainDrew 16y ago
Hulu lost me when they began actively blocking Hulu.com from anything that isn't a desktop/laptop. My Android device has flash, but they disable their site if you aren't on hardware that has their blessing. I'd still see all the ads, so why make your customer's life more difficult?
jinushaun 16y ago
It's all been stated before. With Netflix I can watch anything I want whenever I want on whatever device I want with no ads. That's worth paying for. You can't get that with Hulu's limited selection and web-only viewing experience. I don't mind missing out on current episodes because I have hundreds of thousands of other stuff to watch. In the current episode space, Hulu also competes with the networks themselves. ABC, CBS, Comedy Central, etc all have their own streaming video websites.
frossie 16y ago
with the exception of sports and certain “event programs” Yeah but that's a hell of a big exception. People are willing to pay a lot of money for those. My household "cut the cord" [we're Netflix-only, no cable/satellite/OTA] and the only thing we miss are the sports - even if I had to pay $20 to, say, watch an F1 race online, I'd still be way ahead of what I used to pay for cable/satellite, so I would likely pay hulu (or whoever) for it.
- iamwil 16y ago
  I'm hardly the one to pay for anything, but I do play for netflix. And at just $15, it's a far far better alternative than paying for cable. I get to watch anything, at any time that I want? It's the way TV should be nowadays. the only downside is that netflix recommendations don't work too well for me. Too often, I spend more time picking what to watch, rather than just watching something.
  - roofone 16y ago
    The other downside is you only get 2 channel audio.
    - metageek 16y ago
      Personally, I prefer to keep my audio quality merely decent (I have two Infiniti speakers, $100 each in 1996), so that I can still enjoy it when all I have handy is the $10 earbuds I keep in my belt pouch.
    - Psyonic 16y ago
      5.1 on the ps3: http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/14/netflix-on-ps3-goes-disc-free-gets-1080i-streaming-and-5-1-surr/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/14/netflix-on-ps3-goes-disc-...
      - roofone 16y ago
        Brilliant! (I just wish it was easier to tell which ones were in 5.1.)
darrenkopp 16y ago
I think they need Hulu Plus on more devices, and then their current model might work out better. I'm still waiting for it to be available for Xbox 360. At the same time, I can't remember the last time I watched something on Hulu, so maybe I'm not hurting for it like it would be if I didn't have Netflix.
allwein 16y ago
I'm waiting for netflix to start cutting deals to stream shows the day after they air, a la Apple. I'd happily subscribe for $20/show to subsidize additional costs on netflix's side.
- ryanwaggoner 16y ago
  Unless you only watch 3 shows, isn't cable with a DVR a better value?
  - kgrin 16y ago
    I think it's $20/show per season, whereas cable runs ~$60/month.
    - ryanwaggoner 16y ago
      Oh, duh. Good point.
  - potatolicious 16y ago
    What kgrin said above, but not only that, even at $20/month for 3 shows, it'll still be a good deal for a large segment of the population. The internet has disrupted TV viewing habits in a huge way - where people actively couch-potatoed themselves after work each day in the 90s, now they office-chair-potato themselves in front of the internet.
kirinkalia 16y ago
I completely get why people love Netflix. But if Hulu can't be a serious competitor, who will be? I don't want Netflix to be my only appealing streaming option, and I don't want to pay cable operators a ton of money for stuff I don't watch.
- wmf 16y ago
  Apple, PlayStation Network, Vudu, etc.
cryptoz 16y ago
As an Ubuntu user in Canada, they've both lost their place in my world. Netflix is here, finally - 12 or 13 years later than the USA - but they don't support Ubuntu. And Hulu's still constrained to < 5% of the world's population. There's so much room in this space to innovate, with Step 1 being LEAVE THE USA! And Step 2: Use the WEB! Why can't we get rid of these proprietary plugins? Any company that does both 1 and 2 will be immensely successful.
- mayank 16y ago
  Netflix doesn't use Flash Player, so you can use the "watch instantly" feature anywhere in the world with a simple SSH proxy (Putty+Firefox works nicely for me when I'm traveling).
  - patrickgzill 16y ago
    Do you know which ports need to be forwarded?
    - mayank 16y ago
      it doesn't matter -- in putty, forward your choice of ports (I use 9853 randomly), make sure the type of forwarding in putty is set to "dynamic", and set firefox to use localhost and that port as a socks proxy. works well for skype as well, by the way.
- PostOnce 16y ago
  It would probably cost Netflix more to add Linux support (and test it, and continually support/update/test it for the rest of forever) than they would ever make off of it, at this point. And that's without the cost of advertising that feature. I have always thought that if you choose to run Linux, you're smart enough to figure out a way to get things to run on Linux that don't officially support it. (What percentage of Linux users know how to program in at least 1 language, vs. what percentage of Windows users? 98% and <0.5%?)
  - 16y ago
TomOfTTB 16y ago
I'd like to see this statement sourced... And studios, despite some hemming and hawing, would ultimately rather make a lucrative — reportedly up to $100,000 per mid-season episode — deal with Netflix than rely on middling ad revenue on Hulu. $100,000 isn't that much. Put it this way. The show Two and a Half Men pays its three stars a combined $3.2 million per episode. Another example is Big Bang Theory which just made a deal for 3 more seasons in which the network will pay $4 million per episode (and is probably making way more) CABLE pays around $2 million per episode to syndicate the very shows Netflix is offering $100,000 for (http://tinyurl.com/48c5zo9 http://tinyurl.com/48c5zo9) So $100,000 an episode is more a joke than a real offer that Hollywood is seriously considering.
- isleyaardvark 16y ago
  This article (previously featured on HN) mentioned that Netflix pays much less than cable: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-execs-privately-netflix-71957 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-execs-privat.... I think the point of that statement is that Hulu pays much less than $100,000 per episode.
joelrunyon 16y ago
Hulu started to lose when they started limiting the devices that could access it. Ubiquity is the new exclusivity.
- SteveJS 16y ago
  Or failure is the new success metric, when you are partly owned by a cable company.
MikeCapone 16y ago
Semi-OT: Has Netflix's selection in Canada improved since they launched? It was kind of pitiful compared to the US.
- gamble 16y ago
  It's still pretty thin compared to the US, particularly for television. There haven't been any dramatic changes since the launch.
theBobMcCormick 16y ago
What I love about Netflix streaming is that it completely severs the old TV-viewer relationship of having to worry about "what's on now" and "when does my program start". Since we started using Netflix streaming, we spend a lot more time watching what we want to watch when we want to watch it. Instead of having to worry about having dinner done in time for your favorite program, your favorite program now starts whenever the hell you're ready for it. :-) I also like that I can start watching a series from the beginning, no matter how long its been on. As an example, my wife and I are currently hooked on the show "Weeds". It's been on for 6 seasons already, so trying to get into it now on cable would be...difficult. But with Netflix we've been able to start watching from the first episode with no problems.
drivebyacct2 16y ago
Hulu lost it's place when it basically stopped working at all in Linux. Today I tried to watch the latest episode of the Office. Even in Incognito mode (no personalizations/extensions) the video never loaded, just the gray background across the whole mid section of the page. In Firefox, it played halfway, then skipped to the end-screen, and upon trying to replay, told me that "This video is unavailable. If this message continues, restart your browser". So I went back to plan A. TPB: "s07e12 The Office", and I was watching it in VLC 7 minutes later.
Legion 16y ago
I own four set-top devices that support browsing and viewing Netflix streaming content directly from the device. I own zero devices that can do the same with Hulu. This is the #1 reason Netflix gets subscription money from me and Hulu does not.
- harshpotatoes 16y ago
  My roku can stream both Hulu Plus (which also costs a subscription fee) and netflix. I tried out hulu plus, but after the first commercial streamed in the middle of my show, i stopped it and stopped watching hulu plus. I'm ok paying for a streaming service, and I'm ok with free content having ads, but not both at the same time.
blankenship 16y ago
I've been a Netflix customer since 2002. Every time I attempt to use Hulu for anything other than the handful of current TV shows I watch (Fringe, Community, Chuck) I'm woefully disappointed in their offerings. But more than that I'm frustrated by the UI and search. I don't know if that's why Hulu lost its place in a Netflix world, but it's certainly why its losing its place in mine.
giberson 16y ago
Here's where Hulu lost me as a consumer, it was simply the decision to make their premium service provide extra content and mobile features instead of eliminating ads. Netflix wins because it spares me from advertisements. You have no idea how much I'd be willing to pay companies [even on an individual basis] to never see another advertisement of theirs again.
krosaen 16y ago
I recently cancelled my netflix (streaming) subscription because the selection isn't very good. Until I can watch the current a-list TV shows and movies, it just seems like a constant compromise not worth making. Instead I watch hulu or other online streaming for TV shows, and rent movies from amazon on demand (much much better selection for recent releases). Then again, I have a mac mini hooked up to my TV so it's no problem watching any internet streaming video on it.
ben1040 16y ago
I can look at all the streaming content on Netflix and know it'll play on my computer, iOS device, Xbox, TiVo, Roku, whatever. Hulu, however, has content that is web-only. For example, I can't watch the Simpsons on my phone, only on the web, even though I thought part of the deal with paying for Hulu Plus was having it on other devices. Why pay for being able to watch content on your TV when they don't permit you to watch the popular stuff on anything but a PC? And given what they did to Google TV users, I know that if it were technically possible for Hulu to identify you were watching on a TV-connected HTPC and block you for it, they probably would.
edge17 16y ago
These two companies don't do the same thing under the hood. Netflix has a lot more time to do it's transcoding than Hulu does. Hulu gets their content from studios and has to have a turnaround of hours sometimes, whereas Netflix can take weeks to get something online. Yes, there's a battle for the livingroom going on, and Netflix could start building out the same infrastructure. But it's not trivial for Netflix to just step in and 'steal' away Hulu's customers without first doing a lot of work to lower their transcoding turn-around. For now, both companies have their place because they're not providing the exact same service to the studios.

25 points by gaiusparx 16y ago

Hulu lost me when they began actively blocking Hulu.com from anything that isn't a desktop/laptop. My Android device has flash, but they disable their site if you aren't on hardware that has their blessing. I'd still see all the ads, so why make your customer's life more difficult?

jinushaun 16y ago

It's all been stated before. With Netflix I can watch anything I want whenever I want on whatever device I want with no ads. That's worth paying for. You can't get that with Hulu's limited selection and web-only viewing experience. I don't mind missing out on current episodes because I have hundreds of thousands of other stuff to watch. In the current episode space, Hulu also competes with the networks themselves. ABC, CBS, Comedy Central, etc all have their own streaming video websites.

frossie 16y ago

with the exception of sports and certain “event programs” Yeah but that's a hell of a big exception. People are willing to pay a lot of money for those. My household "cut the cord" [we're Netflix-only, no cable/satellite/OTA] and the only thing we miss are the sports - even if I had to pay $20 to, say, watch an F1 race online, I'd still be way ahead of what I used to pay for cable/satellite, so I would likely pay hulu (or whoever) for it.

iamwil 16y ago
I'm hardly the one to pay for anything, but I do play for netflix. And at just $15, it's a far far better alternative than paying for cable. I get to watch anything, at any time that I want? It's the way TV should be nowadays. the only downside is that netflix recommendations don't work too well for me. Too often, I spend more time picking what to watch, rather than just watching something.
- roofone 16y ago
  The other downside is you only get 2 channel audio.
  - metageek 16y ago
    Personally, I prefer to keep my audio quality merely decent (I have two Infiniti speakers, $100 each in 1996), so that I can still enjoy it when all I have handy is the $10 earbuds I keep in my belt pouch.
  - Psyonic 16y ago
    5.1 on the ps3: http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/14/netflix-on-ps3-goes-disc-free-gets-1080i-streaming-and-5-1-surr/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/14/netflix-on-ps3-goes-disc-...
    - roofone 16y ago
      Brilliant! (I just wish it was easier to tell which ones were in 5.1.)

darrenkopp 16y ago

I think they need Hulu Plus on more devices, and then their current model might work out better. I'm still waiting for it to be available for Xbox 360. At the same time, I can't remember the last time I watched something on Hulu, so maybe I'm not hurting for it like it would be if I didn't have Netflix.

allwein 16y ago

I'm waiting for netflix to start cutting deals to stream shows the day after they air, a la Apple. I'd happily subscribe for $20/show to subsidize additional costs on netflix's side.

ryanwaggoner 16y ago
Unless you only watch 3 shows, isn't cable with a DVR a better value?
- kgrin 16y ago
  I think it's $20/show per season, whereas cable runs ~$60/month.
  - ryanwaggoner 16y ago
    Oh, duh. Good point.
- potatolicious 16y ago
  What kgrin said above, but not only that, even at $20/month for 3 shows, it'll still be a good deal for a large segment of the population. The internet has disrupted TV viewing habits in a huge way - where people actively couch-potatoed themselves after work each day in the 90s, now they office-chair-potato themselves in front of the internet.

kirinkalia 16y ago

I completely get why people love Netflix. But if Hulu can't be a serious competitor, who will be? I don't want Netflix to be my only appealing streaming option, and I don't want to pay cable operators a ton of money for stuff I don't watch.

wmf 16y ago
Apple, PlayStation Network, Vudu, etc.

cryptoz 16y ago

As an Ubuntu user in Canada, they've both lost their place in my world. Netflix is here, finally - 12 or 13 years later than the USA - but they don't support Ubuntu. And Hulu's still constrained to < 5% of the world's population. There's so much room in this space to innovate, with Step 1 being LEAVE THE USA! And Step 2: Use the WEB! Why can't we get rid of these proprietary plugins? Any company that does both 1 and 2 will be immensely successful.

mayank 16y ago
Netflix doesn't use Flash Player, so you can use the "watch instantly" feature anywhere in the world with a simple SSH proxy (Putty+Firefox works nicely for me when I'm traveling).
- patrickgzill 16y ago
  Do you know which ports need to be forwarded?
  - mayank 16y ago
    it doesn't matter -- in putty, forward your choice of ports (I use 9853 randomly), make sure the type of forwarding in putty is set to "dynamic", and set firefox to use localhost and that port as a socks proxy. works well for skype as well, by the way.
PostOnce 16y ago
It would probably cost Netflix more to add Linux support (and test it, and continually support/update/test it for the rest of forever) than they would ever make off of it, at this point. And that's without the cost of advertising that feature. I have always thought that if you choose to run Linux, you're smart enough to figure out a way to get things to run on Linux that don't officially support it. (What percentage of Linux users know how to program in at least 1 language, vs. what percentage of Windows users? 98% and <0.5%?)
- 16y ago

TomOfTTB 16y ago

I'd like to see this statement sourced... And studios, despite some hemming and hawing, would ultimately rather make a lucrative — reportedly up to $100,000 per mid-season episode — deal with Netflix than rely on middling ad revenue on Hulu. $100,000 isn't that much. Put it this way. The show Two and a Half Men pays its three stars a combined $3.2 million per episode. Another example is Big Bang Theory which just made a deal for 3 more seasons in which the network will pay $4 million per episode (and is probably making way more) CABLE pays around $2 million per episode to syndicate the very shows Netflix is offering $100,000 for (http://tinyurl.com/48c5zo9 http://tinyurl.com/48c5zo9) So $100,000 an episode is more a joke than a real offer that Hollywood is seriously considering.

isleyaardvark 16y ago
This article (previously featured on HN) mentioned that Netflix pays much less than cable: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-execs-privately-netflix-71957 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-execs-privat.... I think the point of that statement is that Hulu pays much less than $100,000 per episode.

joelrunyon 16y ago

Hulu started to lose when they started limiting the devices that could access it. Ubiquity is the new exclusivity.

SteveJS 16y ago
Or failure is the new success metric, when you are partly owned by a cable company.

MikeCapone 16y ago

Semi-OT: Has Netflix's selection in Canada improved since they launched? It was kind of pitiful compared to the US.

gamble 16y ago
It's still pretty thin compared to the US, particularly for television. There haven't been any dramatic changes since the launch.

theBobMcCormick 16y ago

What I love about Netflix streaming is that it completely severs the old TV-viewer relationship of having to worry about "what's on now" and "when does my program start". Since we started using Netflix streaming, we spend a lot more time watching what we want to watch when we want to watch it. Instead of having to worry about having dinner done in time for your favorite program, your favorite program now starts whenever the hell you're ready for it. :-) I also like that I can start watching a series from the beginning, no matter how long its been on. As an example, my wife and I are currently hooked on the show "Weeds". It's been on for 6 seasons already, so trying to get into it now on cable would be...difficult. But with Netflix we've been able to start watching from the first episode with no problems.

drivebyacct2 16y ago

Hulu lost it's place when it basically stopped working at all in Linux. Today I tried to watch the latest episode of the Office. Even in Incognito mode (no personalizations/extensions) the video never loaded, just the gray background across the whole mid section of the page. In Firefox, it played halfway, then skipped to the end-screen, and upon trying to replay, told me that "This video is unavailable. If this message continues, restart your browser". So I went back to plan A. TPB: "s07e12 The Office", and I was watching it in VLC 7 minutes later.

Legion 16y ago

I own four set-top devices that support browsing and viewing Netflix streaming content directly from the device. I own zero devices that can do the same with Hulu. This is the #1 reason Netflix gets subscription money from me and Hulu does not.

harshpotatoes 16y ago
My roku can stream both Hulu Plus (which also costs a subscription fee) and netflix. I tried out hulu plus, but after the first commercial streamed in the middle of my show, i stopped it and stopped watching hulu plus. I'm ok paying for a streaming service, and I'm ok with free content having ads, but not both at the same time.

blankenship 16y ago

I've been a Netflix customer since 2002. Every time I attempt to use Hulu for anything other than the handful of current TV shows I watch (Fringe, Community, Chuck) I'm woefully disappointed in their offerings. But more than that I'm frustrated by the UI and search. I don't know if that's why Hulu lost its place in a Netflix world, but it's certainly why its losing its place in mine.

giberson 16y ago

Here's where Hulu lost me as a consumer, it was simply the decision to make their premium service provide extra content and mobile features instead of eliminating ads. Netflix wins because it spares me from advertisements. You have no idea how much I'd be willing to pay companies [even on an individual basis] to never see another advertisement of theirs again.

krosaen 16y ago

I recently cancelled my netflix (streaming) subscription because the selection isn't very good. Until I can watch the current a-list TV shows and movies, it just seems like a constant compromise not worth making. Instead I watch hulu or other online streaming for TV shows, and rent movies from amazon on demand (much much better selection for recent releases). Then again, I have a mac mini hooked up to my TV so it's no problem watching any internet streaming video on it.

ben1040 16y ago

I can look at all the streaming content on Netflix and know it'll play on my computer, iOS device, Xbox, TiVo, Roku, whatever. Hulu, however, has content that is web-only. For example, I can't watch the Simpsons on my phone, only on the web, even though I thought part of the deal with paying for Hulu Plus was having it on other devices. Why pay for being able to watch content on your TV when they don't permit you to watch the popular stuff on anything but a PC? And given what they did to Google TV users, I know that if it were technically possible for Hulu to identify you were watching on a TV-connected HTPC and block you for it, they probably would.

edge17 16y ago

These two companies don't do the same thing under the hood. Netflix has a lot more time to do it's transcoding than Hulu does. Hulu gets their content from studios and has to have a turnaround of hours sometimes, whereas Netflix can take weeks to get something online. Yes, there's a battle for the livingroom going on, and Netflix could start building out the same infrastructure. But it's not trivial for Netflix to just step in and 'steal' away Hulu's customers without first doing a lot of work to lower their transcoding turn-around. For now, both companies have their place because they're not providing the exact same service to the studios.