Alright, so maybe my post isn’t really about what I’ve watched recently, but more so how I’ve gone about it.  Actually, I probably don’t even need to mention that, but let’s just say that Hulu hasn’t been all that helpful.  And, if the news that’s just started spreading is true, it probably won’t be helpful to me for much longer, even to catch up on shows I already watch.

According to a few different news outlets, Hulu announced today that they would be transforming into a paid service sometime after the new year in an attempt to build the “Great Paywall of Television.”  While the timing bit is great news for those of us who want to make sure we see the Christmas specials of our favorite shows, it most certainly isn’t a good way to ring in the new year.  And the choice, given broadcast television’s traditional format of ad-supported free-to-watch broadcasts, is quite interesting.  Hulu claims that they’ll be leaving some content available for people who don’t want to break out their wallets, but I find it hard to believe that the new paid system will pull viewers in with the same level of effectiveness.  (But hey, what do I know?  I’m the guy who said Google Wave sucked only to end up with a few well-formulated comments about why it doesn’t.)

I’m a little confused, really, as it’s exactly this sort of behavior that causes people to download their music, movies, television shows, and software from questionable places.

If Hulu is going to go down this route, though, they’ll need to satisfy this list of demands (add any additional suggestions in the comments):

• For any show Hulu carries, the entire catalog must be available at all times.  If I’m able and willing to pay for the service, I had better be able to watch whatever I please.  If I want to make some popcorn and watch “Three Stories,” I’d better not have to wait until Fox decides to let Hulu run through the first season again.Consider it another way:  for the price of a few months, I can get a portable hard drive.  On this portable hard drive, I can store all the TV shows and movies I want and watch them anywhere I happen to have access to a computer.  (Given that my laptops have been following me around almost constantly as of late, this isn’t even a problem anymore.)  And I won’t have to wait for the show to buffer or sit through ads to watch it, either.
• Again, because I’m paying the bandwidth bills in the first place, I’d better be able to use the video in more than just my browser or the resource hog Hulu calls a desktop client.  I’d like to be able to put a few episodes of 24 on my ZEN, if you don’t mind.Nobody said that the downloaded episodes had to come without strings attached (watermark them, for all I care), but, as I pointed out already, any fool can grab a video from the newsgroups and load it onto their iPod.
• I really don’t care if it’s against my cell phone carrier’s data policy or not, but it’s not up to Hulu to decide that my phone (and anything attached to it) are not suitable mediums for watching shows.  If AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, or any other carrier has a problem with it, they can deal with it in their own method.  It’s not up to you to decide, and my first reaction to you trying to tell me what I can and cannot do with what I pay for is to tell you to sod off while I go somewhere else.

The way I see it, Hulu’s turning into a cute little portable polygraph detector, and all the other ways I can watch TV are like the egg.  They both have their downsides, but one appears to be “technologically superior” (bear with my metaphor) without really getting anything new or exciting done at the same time.  They might want to re-think their position before they end up found guilty of screwing up their business plans to the point where they can’t be recovered.