For Hulu users, the honeymoon will soon be over.
The online video-viewing Web site may begin charging users for content as soon as 2010, News Corp Deputy Chairman Chase Carey announced at an industry summit in New York City on Oct. 21, according to an article by industry magazine Broadcasting and Cable. Hulu has provided many popular TV shows and movies on demand since its introduction in March 2008 for free through ads and commercials.
While the announcement has come before most of the formal details have been ironed out, this is likely to cause an uproar among its most dedicated viewers. And as unpopular as this may make me, I'm about to make my own announcement: it's their right to do this.
And as everything inevitably migrates online, for better or for worse, this is the time to remind you that Hulu, like almost everything else, is a business. And I don't need to put on my economist hat to tell you businesses need to make money or they fail.
However, the struggle for media companies in the Internet era is how to make money off of their content while providing it for free. The decision by some news outlets to provide news content for free when the Internet was still young has been a major contributor to the current state of the newspaper industry -- once some outlets make content free, it's hard to argue because then the public expects their content for free. News outlets are finding it hard to recoup the costs of developing its content solely through online ad sales and declining print subscriptions.
With that said, though, if Hulu hopes to charge people for their content after providing it for free, they'll be fighting an uphill battle.
And that's not to say that viewers are wrong for not wanting to pay for something after getting it for free, but if a company has a product -- including Hulu and its video content -- it's completely up to the company if they want to charge for the product, just as it's completely up to the customer -- including Hulu viewers -- to choose whether he or she feels the content is worth the cost.
The likely outcome is that, depending on which content Hulu plans to charge for, many viewers will turn to other means to watch what they want, illegal or not. And that means another battle will probably be lost in the war against online piracy.
It's a bold decision, that's for sure. But, believe it or not, your world won't end.
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