FINALLY.
That's the only real reaction I had when I first heard that Hulu was rolling out a subscription option for people who didn't want to watch commercials.
For $11.99 per month — $4 more than the usual subscription — subscribers can now watch as much as they want without being interrupted by annoying ads.
It's not even a question for me — of course I'm going to do it. But I don't think everyone shares that sentiment, and many likely don't even come close.
I am a devoted Hulu user and have been paying for it for years now. Even with ads, I was a big fan of the service. I'm a cord cutter, but I still love a lot of network TV programming, and the best way for me to get it is to pay for Hulu.
There are, of course, other solutions from the networks — I watch "Big Brother" on CBS's app, for example. But other apps don't work as well and they aren't natively cross-platform, meaning they don't necessarily work well on all of my devices, like on my Apple TV.
Hulu lets you see a lot of the new programming from the networks the day shows air, and has apps across Apple TV, Roku, iOS, and Android. It also works perfectly with Chromecast, Google's $35 streaming device.
Services like Hulu have to find a way to make money. Netflix, Amazon, HBO Now, and others have gone the purely subscription route, while Hulu has tried to have its cake and eat it too — for years it has had a free option with ads as well as a paid subscription that still has ads. That's been the company's deal, and one that some have thought is unfair or not worthwhile.
The bottom line is this — if I'm going to pay $8 already for Hulu, I might as well pay the price of a latte each month to save me around 15 or 20 minutes per hour-long show.
I'm so excited not to have to see this anymore:
The arrows point to the moments where the show is interrupted by ads. This is especially annoying when you want to skip to ahead to another point in a show. You always have to wait for the set of ads to play, and it quickly becomes tedious.
This is much better:
Glorious.
But beyond simply the functionality, paying this extra $4 a month is going to save me a ton of time in my personal life.
I'm a busy guy with a long commute. I have about an hour and a half between the time I get home for work and when I go to bed. An hour long TV show on Hulu would often fill that gap, and it takes about that long to get through because of the ads. But now that show will take about 40 minutes for a small price every month.
My time is valuable to me — much more valuable than $4 a month.
I can see why some people might be intimidated by a subscription price of $11.99. That's significantly more than Netflix costs, but it's really a very different product. If you want to watch what's on TV now without commercials, and you don't want to wait a year for it to get to Netflix, I think this is a no-brainer.
