Hulu Plus isn’t going away. Yet. But I know I’ve decided to toss my subscription. Part of it is because of redundancy with Netflix, which now has its own iPhone app.
But mostly it’s the same thing that’s plagued Hulu since its inception – a lack of consistent content that’s consistently available.
Rather than rehash what I went through last night, here’s the rant I sent to Hulu last night with my cancelation. Unlike Netflix, they at least refunded the balance of the month I haven’t used, which was a plus on the way out the door.
Without further ado, here’s my goodbye letter.
Hulu Plus is a joke. My girlfriend and I have been watching all of Buffy The Vampire Slayer over the course of the last few weeks on my iPhone. There was an occasional ad during the episodes. The occasional 15 second blurb wasn’t that bad.
Then we decided to watch on my laptop and Hulu Plus showed what a massive pile of crap it is. First off, each ad break is suddenly two 30-second commercials. I felt weird having ads shown to me for 15 seconds when I was already paying almost $10 a month for a service, but showing a full minute of ads at each act break? It’s like you’re pissing on my head and selling me a towel to dry off with.
On top of that, I checked my queue and saw episode 4 of season 4 “Fear, Itself” has expired. No other episodes. No other seasons. Just one episode smack in the middle of the series is gone.
That last move prompted me to visit Netflix where I found my streaming service not only offers all seasons and episodes of Buffy for streaming, but there are no ads. What a concept! I pay for a service, I’m not lambasted with ads AND I actually get to watch the shows I thought I paid to access!
Another amazing concept on top of that is I can play Netflix on my Wii just fine. And guess what? That’s also included in my subscription fee.
Hulu started out as a great idea as competition to YouTube. Then the networks that created it started picking it apart. Then the ads got longer. Hulu Plus looked like a light at the end of the tunnel, but instead it’s another baseball bat to consumers’ kneecaps.