Being an online video consumer, I am willing to pay reasonable subscription fee to the the quality video platform, such as Hulu. How much is the reasonable fee? It would be the fee that not exceeds the effort to get the same content from other channels or sources.
Compared to other online video providers, Hulu provides better video quality than other channels like Youtube and is much easier to access than other sources like the legal Netflix or illegal P2P services. Hulu is an innovative video service and undoubtedly free is its killer so far. If Hulu starts charging the subscription fee, it will lose its advantage, at least some media observers said so.
Hulu offers high video quality which needs high bandwidth for stream transmission. The Internet infrastructure is not ready for this. It will confront a bottleneck for boosting its unique viewers. The subscription fee and the Internet speed will affect its user experience. Moreover, there are alternatives for video consumers to stay with. For example, Netflix model is another comparable competitor whose users can watch the movies offline with good experience.
How to balance the user experience and the subscription fee is a great challenge for hulu. It also have to consider other alternative competitors, existed cable network players, free P2P service providers, Netflix etc. I agree the mix pay and free model would be a hope for Hulu to create its second cow beside its advertisers. The challenge is the decision of what content is free and what is premium. To keep the 38 million users staying with Hulu, it needs to provider a freemium model which can simultaneously satisfy the two groups of willing pay and wanna free. If the freemium scheme fails, it would result in a disaster for Hulu.
nternet is not the cable network. Charging the subscription fee makes Hulu more like a traditional TV. The Internet is a medium for innovation and I think Hulu should be more creative in charging fee for its content. The economic model should take the advantage of free to benefit both content providers and consumers.
