We have long hated iTunes here over at TechGeist. The large, buggy, ponderous, creaking iTunes is the epitome if bloatware. We never use major sections of functionality, and iTunes just grows and grows. It seems every other day Apple is pushing a new update out. Now, good news abounds. You heard yesterday that Disney had taken a large share in Hulu, and that its content advantage was growing at an alarming rate. With that, we need to talk about free. Music and video fans biggest beef with iTunes has been its pricing scheme: inflexible and too high. And it never seems to give any money back to the artists, but more on that on a different day. With Hulu, I doubt that I will ever buy another video from iTunes, why bother?
If you are dying to see the latest Office episode, pay a few bucks, or watch a few ads? It puts a direct price on the ads, three dollars or three minutes of ads, etc. My prediction: people are going to take the free option. By the bucketful. Why pay for something when you can just mute the sound and get a new beer coke in the ad break? The only way Hulu could really break the trend would be to lower the quality of their streaming videos. However, there has been no sign of that.
Final thought here, when are we going to get a Hulu for music? If the the video Hollywood TV team is farther ahead of the curve than you, you are in last place. Long live Hulu Rising.
