The new Hulu Subscriber agreement just dropped - Don't like ads too bad.

"No, ads!"

They seem to be a bit stupid about punctuation. It should read "No, ads!"

Free ads

'Inflammable' means flammable? What a country!

in Greece at least nobody gives you the option - unless it's a very pricey service that you can pay as a package

There's no way this should be a profitable course of action. If I was paying for no Ads and started getting Ads I would immediately cancel my subscription and go somewhere else.

Unfortunately too many people are good little consumers who just don't care and it doesn't even occur to them to stop paying and demand better.

This is what I do:

1. Buy a perpetual license to the content I want (usually on Prime or Microsoft Store)
2. Pirate it and load it onto my PLEX server.

This is the only way I can actually have control over the content that I fucking paid for. If that makes me a thief, then so be it.

Of course, this only works for PPV content. I generally just don't watch content that's available via streaming subscriptions only. I never paid for cable and I'm not paying for cable 2.0.

Streaming is akin to renting not buying

Remove the "if buying isnt owning" part

You are stealing potential profits

I would argue all streaming services have gone to shit. I'm not saying I encourage anyone to pirate that doesn't want to. But I am saying i don't blame a single soul that does.

As far as I'm concerned all those companies can go fuck themselves. They know that the less technical people will willingly keep paying so the ones they lose won't matter.

Well, it's ad-free as long as you consume at least one verification can every 10 minutes

"Our financial circumstances (our shareholders want more money) require..."

REQUIRE Line go up!

Numbers aren't going up fast enough.

Yes! Hulu originally was 100% free because it had ads. The it became a monthly sub but never removed the ads. Then it split into what it is today with an ad option and an ad free option.

Those were initially limited to shows that had contracts in place before hulu existed and was limited to like 3 shows.

Even if you do get a copy with ads, it's trivial to remove it yourself. You can use Handbrake and specify chapter times. Chapter start at open credits. Chapter end just before the ad roll. Chapter start after ad roll. Chapter end at the end of the video.

I've been using RD + Stremio for 2 years now, has worked great (except when RD shut down, then switched to Debrid-Link, which was as easy as RD). It costs about 3€ per month, though I think it has been worth it.

You can't steal a TV show

I’m interested to know if Hulu is under pressure from content owners here. The way this is worded makes it sound like ads are a negotiated part of some of their content licensing deals that they cannot avoid. I’m just curious if that’s in part because of the content owners. Maybe those owners don’t want to give content for a flat fee and instead want a % cut of the business, or something?

In other areas, yeah, probably.

But with music, movies, and TV, they'll just blame piracy, crank up the DRM and bullshit on their own platforms, pat themselves on the back, and raise prices.

The reality is there aren't enough people that care about ads to do that.

You either grew up with TV commercials or you grew up with ads, the conditioning is already there. There is a narrow band of people who don't watch much or any TV and got on the internet for most content that remember when ads weren't a thing. They have done studies and reviewed user data to determine how much ads they can play.

They might push users to leave by tickling the ad tolerance while increasing subscription fees, but that is unlikely to happen as the frog is already boiled.

I cancelled everything but paramount recently. Just cant quit star trek. Until I fix my DNS server at least

Just a numbers game. More people will absorb the costs than cancel their subscriptions. So these streaming services can keep ratcheting until they hit a breaking point. There's no disincentive to these behaviors, as long as net revenue increases quarter to quarter.

Piracy requires a certain degree of technical competence and internet savvy that the vast majority of end users don't have.

Ad free with ads isn't new to me. Paramount Plus will sometimes show pre-roll ads. They're usually ads for other shows on Paramount and you can skip it right away, but it's an ad nonetheless.

I could go without the unskippable 5 second branding bumper though.

I don't consider it immoral regardless tbh

Call it what it is - copyright infringement. Piracy is the act of robbery on the high seas, but we've allowed media companies to take a shit in our vocabularies so we can't call things by their proper names.

Arrr matey, t’was never immoral! Subscriptions only be for landlubbers!

Prepare to make sail! Ahoy!

What words mean?

Sometimes it's important to the plot to let the viewer know about the cool refreshing taste of Pißwasser German lager.

According to a US judge last year, "boneless chicken wings" does not mean the chicken wings don't have bones in them.

Sir this is 2025 america lol

Another one that shouldn’t be allowed but is are the unlimited* plans where the * indicates that it’s not really unlimited.

They get away with it with that damned asterisk. So long as you put an asterisk, you could say this comment does not contain English words

comment may contain some or all English and / or any other language words

They've literally been doing this for over a decade, at least. There were always some shows on Hulu that the "ad-free" plan didn't include as ad-free, though they usually only showed ads at the beginning and the end of the show.

Look being real they would get away with it no matter which decrepit old man was in office or what their politics are. America is a corporatocracy wearing the skin of democracy. When the IRS audited Microsoft for tax evasion, the IRS got sued and defunded through lobbying to the point of being forced to back off. Fucking Microsoft took down the IRS. The world has changed and our old institutions of power are waning.

It's not just live streams. On-demand of Comcast networks will have ads because it's fucking Comcast and they are gonna force you to watch them as much as possible. At least you can use the live tv dvr feature to record the things you want and skip commercials then.

Comcast continues providing ample evidence as to why they are one of the most hated companies in the US. They used to be THE most hated company, but the founder of an extremely popular battery company, that also makes cars, recently outed himself as a mask-off nazi, so Comcast is gonna have to step it up to keep their hold on #1. I imagine it's only a matter of time before all ICE vehicles have vinyl wraps on them that boast "Powered by Comcast", and concentration camps detention centers acting as free (fully tracked and monitored) wifi hotspots.

By "high seas", you're referring to torrenting, right? Not ripping DVDs and Blu-Rays?

Vertical integration!

They're modifying a legal document, one of the most detail-focused creations *ever. If they only wanted it to apply to live TV programs, they absolutely could have. When people (or corporations) show you who they are, believe them.

edit: autocorrect

They've been showing ads on content from certain sources on supposedly "ad-free" tiers for years.

The Hulu logo preroll/interstitial isnt an ad but it uses the same system. I imagine they only mean ads in live TV offerings.

Show us the challenge review, show us the mascot relay race, show us the kiss cam.

yes, you can, and I would expect an "ad-free" service to do so, at minimum replace it with a "commercial break" sign and preferably adding extra commentary.

Yep. Worked there for a bit. They're contractually obligated to show ads on certain content. Doesn't matter what tier you're on. As a paying customer (a rather long time ago), my partner became so incensed at the ads that played even though he paid for ad-free that he rage-cancelled his membership.

But the CEO of proton assures me that this administration will stand up for the little guy and nominate someone who will do good antitrust work!

let p = ads, thus p = np. Where is my prize money?