Hulu Selection Pathetic and Globally Blocked
October 29, 2007 by Mike Abundo
Filed under Computers, Television
I expected Hulu to get bogged down by all sorts of crazy corporate content restrictions. Guess what? I was right. The mutant spawn of NBC and Fox is globally screwing itself even before launch.
I got a private beta invitation through my b5media email address. b5media is based in Canada, so it would be easy for some fresh-faced yuppie suit at Hulu to assume I’m in Canada.
Guess what? I’m now writing this post from the tropical paradise of the Philippines. Yup, you guessed it: I can’t watch Hulu videos here. NBC and Fox probably don’t want to piss off their international cable affiliates. Hulu just carries too much offline video baggage to succeed inside online video.
Not that I’d probably want to watch Hulu videos, anyway. Their limited selection of “premium” clips and episodes is pretty pathetic. Back to YouTube for me, you Hulu losers.
The top banner tells you to “Watch your favorite videos. Anytime. Anywhere.” Riiight. First, NBC and Fox videos are not automatically my favorite videos. Second, Hulu will take down old episodes after five weeks, so I cannot watch them anytime. Third, I clearly cannot watch them anywhere. This is typical TV executive corporatespeak: vague claims insulting your intelligence.
Ah… well. True. They’d get pirated anyways and they’d end up everywhere and anywhere. Hehehe What’s the use of blocking it to other countries then? Duh…
In Italy I can’t see anything!
“anywhere” + “anytime” for sure… but they forgot “NOTHING” !
I was blocked as well, and this is very unfortunate for consumers outside the USA. I do believe that in order to comply with licenses it’s important for companies to do what they can to keep costs low. There are more restrictions with licenses being written into many developed sites like this now everyday.
I’m a American that lives overseas and enjoys online gaming and also great music and TV sites like hulu and Pandora. When this happens I can say it’s quite devastating since I really don’t have access to entertainment that others do. It’s unfortunate you can’t simply give them a ID or something to prove your American :)
I was able to get back on the site by using a American VPN service like http://www.strongvpn.com or http://www.vpnaccounts.com . With VPN services these blockages are bypassed thankfully. But it sucks I have to pay more to see these sites now.
Also I suggest getting a VPN provider with unlimited bandwidth and 24×7 support, like http://www.strongvpn.com.
Welp, it’s Tues. 21. Hulu.com is down. I wonder for how long?