To Hulu

I was gone when you were born, Hulu. As a missionary in the Philippines I had no clue you existed until I got home and decided I needed to catch up on the two years of Lost that I missed.

"What's that? FREE tv shows online? It can't be... I love you Hulu!" That is probably what everyone thought when you started in 2007. You gave the world a way to watch their favorite shows streaming online 24 hours after they premiered on the TV. Your business model was designed by the network bigshots to battle YouTube and take the internet video market by storm. By all accounts you've been very successful. I know you've changed the way I watch TV, and I think I can speak for the millions of others who use you. Over 1.5 BILLION (not a typo) videos were watched on you LAST MONTH and the numbers keep growing. You make your money by advertising. Surely you're making a ton.

You can understand my worry when I open the Wall Street Journal and read that you are considering changing your business model (again), turning yourself into a monthly-subscrition-only site that plays mostly live TV, AKA cable on my computer. To this I hiss and boo and I think it is a poor strategic decision.

The millions who use you monthly use you because we get to watch your shows, that we love and need, on our time table. I love Modern Family, for example, but I NEVER have time on wednesday nights to watch it live on cable. Because of you, I never have to worry about missing a week, though. I know I speak for the masses when I say that I just don't have the resources to be able to tell you that I can sit down in front of my tv or computer at the same time every week to catch a show. Today's world demands flexibility and your new business model will strangle that. By switching to a monthly-subscription setup you will lose millions of users, including me. I would go to Netflix in a heartbeat, because when it comes to subscription video, they dominate (AND they're commercial free, something you probably wouldn't do if you went to subscriptions, and nobody wants to pay to watch commercials on the internet). A subscription makes you the EXACT SAME as cable TV, meaning that people will either dump you for cable (or netflix, or both) or dump cable for you. Either way Hulu (since all you are is a conglomeration of the network hotshots) you're not going to gain many subscribers in the end. People will just choose one or the other.

I know I'm a biased, poor, college student, Hulu, but I think I speak for America when I say you're amazing just the way you are. Don't screw us Americans over just because you all think you're not making enough money as it is. You're doing fine.