Thursday, February 19, 2009

Hulu blocks boxee

They announced it on their site today, and I left a comment:
Even though I've never used Boxee, I see this as the final nail in the coffin for Hulu.

The first really big faux pas was that your content isn't permanent. I watched Ghostbusters one day, and the next day it was gone. On the Internet, that doesn't work. You can't do that; you're breaking a rule. When stuff like that happens, you lose the trust of your users - who won't return to your site if the experience isn't continually better than the last time.

Now, with this update and what content you have remaining, you're imposing limits on how we consume it. If that's the case... well, what's the point? How long before Hulu only works in certain web browsers? At certain times? In certain places?  

In your post you said there's no "win" for us consumers, but I disagree. The "win" is the lesson we're taking away from this situation. We've learned that the content providers haven't learned what we want. We've learned that as it stands today, the only way to enjoy the content we want in the way we want, is through piracy - or not at all. Their bottom line and yours will depend on whether or not you both can provide a better experience for us consumers.
This is just more evidence that the content providers either don't get it or don't care.  It's also a great argument for alternative media.

Edit: It's interesting to note that my comment wasn't immediately published.  Also; this morning Hulu's feed republished all of their latest stories - presumably so the boxee post would get lost in the shuffle.  Dirty pool.

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