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by cj 2448 days ago
> no commercials

Anyone who watches Hulu has heard "will play with a commercial before and after the show". Hulu has been increasing the number of ads they include. It used to be ad free for many shows. Then they went to 30 second ads. Now they're stuffing 180 seconds or more on many shows.

> higher quality (arguably) shows

Definitely arguable. My feeling is the quality is going down quite a bit, but I think that's because the demand for content volume has increased (in the era of binge watching, a single TV series is started and over in one weekend).

> Additionally, it’s possible to just subscribe to the one service you really like because they all have a lot of content.

This might be true now. But there are multiple high profile streaming services launching in the next year (e.g. Disney+), which is prompting Disney to pull all content off other platforms.

4 comments

> Definitely arguable. My feeling is the quality is going down quite a bit, but I think that's because the demand for content volume has increased (in the era of binge watching, a single TV series is started and over in one weekend).

Which is sad because there are plenty of better things to do than TV. I love shows as much as the next person, but if streaming really does morph back into Cable, I will just end up watching little to no TV and pirating anything I must see, which is rare. I'm already most of the way there anyhow. Life's too short for modern brainwashing via advertising. Vegetation is death.

Quitting TV may exactly be what people need
Ever since I started paying for Hulu years ago, I have not seen a single ad while watching it.
A few shows still have ads even with the paid option. I know Grey's Anatomy is (or was at one time) one of them, but I believe there are a few others.
Every time I’ve looked it’s fewer shows, though - last I checked it was only 3. They were popular ones but nothing I had any interest in, so I switched from Netflix (I was done waiting for them to let me turn off that horrid auto-preview misfeature) and I have never once seen an ad on Hulu.
FWIW, the Hulu package associated with the Disney+ option is not the "commercial free" package. So you'll have to pay a bit more with the Disney+ to retain your ad-free experience on Hulu.
Disney+ will be that one service for a lot of people. And the places they are pulling from will still have a lot to watch, e.g., people who like Netflix shows could still only subscribe to Netflix. I’m not saying that people will only subscribe to one service, just that they could get away with one $5-15/mo payment and have more good stuff to watch than they have time for, on demand. That’s really different than cable.

Ad tiers of streaming services are really cheap (approaching zero over time), so if we are looking at those, then the cost of a bunch of them is less than cable equivalent and don’t need to be better (even though they are.)

I’m pretty excited for the Disney+Hulu bundle. That and the content I get from my Prime membership (not to mention the ability to rent the odd movie/show from Amazon) is pretty close to everything I want.

Marvel/Disney/Star Wars/Simpsons... I’m good for awhile.