Friday, August 27, 2010

Progression

When Hulu announced their Plus plan, I heard the same conversation at least 3 times.

"Hulu Plus still has ads? I'm not paying to watch ads!"
"Well you've paid for cable right? And that has ads."
"Oh yeah . . . "

I think we'd have to score that exchange:
Haters: 1
Keepin' it Real: 0

But it is weird, when you think about it, paying someone to show you ads. So why do we accept it so willingly with cable TV?

The fact is, for a long time most media was one-way communication. There was no way for viewers to give feedback, to stop one show and go to another. Ads could be a part of the experience because the users had no other choice.

But the internet is all about choice, it's entirely driven by the choices of the viewer. So once something is online, we have different expectations about how it's presented.

How interesting then, that Hulu (which is owned by TV Networks) contains traditional ads, while other services like Netflix Instant (which is in the DVD business, where users have more control of the content) do not. 

I think this is called a paradigm shift.

No comments: