That's why I pay for hulu+++×+
It's guaranteed you'll never see an ad*
*unless Hulu determines it is justified
If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't theft. ;-)
Remove the "if buying isnt owning" part
You are stealing potential profits
Hulu has always had a clause like that. Their ad-free tier has always had a handful of shows that have an ad at the beginning and end, which is why I don't pay for the ad-free tier and just use NextDNS.
Those were initially limited to shows that had contracts in place before hulu existed and was limited to like 3 shows.
🏴☠️
"circumstances may require"
No, you just want to do that.
"Our financial circumstances (our shareholders want more money) require..."
Numbers aren't going up fast enough.
I first time I see an ad on my ad-free subscription, I will cancel like I did with Prime Video.
It’s like they want us to become pirates.
Product placement is advertising, and as such saying "no ads" while not blurring out product placement would be misselling the service
Sometimes it's important to the plot to let the viewer know about the cool refreshing taste of Pißwasser German lager.
Reminder that whatever your feelings on copyright law are, stealing from Disney is fucking cool
What a wonderful world we live in - boneless chicken with bones, ad-free streaming with ads, unlimited plans with limits... What's next, Nestle releasing microplastics and cadmium free water (guess what's in it!)?
Ad free with ads isn't new to me. Paramount Plus will sometimes show pre-roll ads. They're usually ads for other shows on Paramount and you can skip it right away, but it's an ad nonetheless.
I could go without the unskippable 5 second branding bumper though.
HBO does this too, I've been told they get away with it because it's a trailer not an ad, as though there's a difference, but mate, I'm already watching Star Trek, you don't need to suggest I watch Star Trek.
Yarr, matey.
I've been using RD + Stremio for 2 years now, has worked great (except when RD shut down, then switched to Debrid-Link, which was as easy as RD). It costs about 3€ per month, though I think it has been worth it.
If the no ads and ads free version contains adds then pirating is also not immoral anymore.
I don't consider it immoral regardless tbh
Call it what it is - copyright infringement. Piracy is the act of robbery on the high seas, but we've allowed media companies to take a shit in our vocabularies so we can't call things by their proper names.
Yeah, but pirates are cool.
Arrr matey, t’was never immoral! Subscriptions only be for landlubbers!
Prepare to make sail! Ahoy!
What words mean?
Grog no like ad. Grog want buy thing? Grog make up own mind. Grog not want ad tell grog what buy, what like. Grog know what grog like.
If people would just drop their service en masse they would stop doing this shit. Everyone acts like they can be without a streaming service for a month or two so they'll just complain as they continue to hand them money.
In other areas, yeah, probably.
But with music, movies, and TV, they'll just blame piracy, crank up the DRM and bullshit on their own platforms, pat themselves on the back, and raise prices.
crank up the DRM
Which is why so many people pirate. Non-conforming browser, OS, TV, some other missing magic? Too bad. Paid for quality 4K? Here's some low bitrate 720p.
The reality is there aren't enough people that care about ads to do that.
You either grew up with TV commercials or you grew up with ads, the conditioning is already there. There is a narrow band of people who don't watch much or any TV and got on the internet for most content that remember when ads weren't a thing. They have done studies and reviewed user data to determine how much ads they can play.
They might push users to leave by tickling the ad tolerance while increasing subscription fees, but that is unlikely to happen as the frog is already boiled.
I grew up with ads but I still don't tolerate them, I'm practically allergic to ads.
Even back then I would just switch the Chanel when ads would start and then so many times just forget what I was watching and watch something else. And even as a kid I already would preference shows running on the public television in Germany because they didn't have ads, they were played in a different way.
I cancelled everything but paramount recently. Just cant quit star trek. Until I fix my DNS server at least
Looks at UTorrent happily leeching away
Looks at camera
To be fair, it most likely refers to live streams, considering more steamers are offering them.
That being said, I cancelled in favour of the high seas and never looked back
It's not just live streams. On-demand of Comcast networks will have ads because it's fucking Comcast and they are gonna force you to watch them as much as possible. At least you can use the live tv dvr feature to record the things you want and skip commercials then.
Comcast continues providing ample evidence as to why they are one of the most hated companies in the US. They used to be THE most hated company, but the founder of an extremely popular battery company, that also makes cars, recently outed himself as a mask-off nazi, so Comcast is gonna have to step it up to keep their hold on #1. I imagine it's only a matter of time before all ICE vehicles have vinyl wraps on them that boast "Powered by Comcast", and
concentration campsdetention centers acting as free (fully tracked and monitored) wifi hotspots.
I’d say “sounds like a lawsuit”. After all, you can’t advertise something as no ads, and then show ads.
But then I remember who is in charge for the next four years and realize they’ll just get away with it.
Look being real they would get away with it no matter which decrepit old man was in office or what their politics are. America is a corporatocracy wearing the skin of democracy. When the IRS audited Microsoft for tax evasion, the IRS got sued and defunded through lobbying to the point of being forced to back off. Fucking Microsoft took down the IRS. The world has changed and our old institutions of power are waning.
Another one that shouldn’t be allowed but is are the unlimited* plans where the * indicates that it’s not really unlimited.
Anything where the clear statement with such a marker indicating it is not true should be illegal. 'Up to' claims should also be illegal unless they are true for 99%+ of users/customers.
According to a US judge last year, "boneless chicken wings" does not mean the chicken wings don't have bones in them.
Sir this is 2025 america lol
Gestures broadly
Our Deep Depression
They get away with it with that damned asterisk. So long as you put an asterisk, you could say this comment does not contain English words*
* comment may contain some or all English and / or any other language words
They've literally been doing this for over a decade, at least. There were always some shows on Hulu that the "ad-free" plan didn't include as ad-free, though they usually only showed ads at the beginning and the end of the show.
By Lemmy Social Contract that You've implicitly agreed to, you must now sail the high seas [email protected] (blocked by lemmy.world instance btw)
Live Free on the High Seas! 🏴☠️
I just cancelled my subscription and got a refund too. Good riddance.
some titles always have had ads on hulu, regardless of a viewer's plan. they frame it as being 'required' by the content provider.. which, iirc, is usually them--a disney-owned entity for these titles.
Vertical integration!
"No ads" and "ad-free" apparently mean whatever they want it to! Man, I'm so tired of these giant, greedy corporations and modern enshittification...
what the fuck are people actually paying for at this point
I assume they mean the live TV offerings, and technically the Hulu splash at the start of every episode is marked as an ad.
But it’s still scummy.
They're modifying a legal document, one of the most detail-focused creations *ever. If they only wanted it to apply to live TV programs, they absolutely could have. When people (or corporations) show you who they are, believe them.
edit: autocorrect
They've been showing ads on content from certain sources on supposedly "ad-free" tiers for years.
The Hulu logo preroll/interstitial isnt an ad but it uses the same system. I imagine they only mean ads in live TV offerings.
Jesus fucking christ.
I just assumed this disclaimer was for live sports, which include ads whether you want them to or not. It’s not like you can just leave out the commercial breaks in a live broadcast.
Show us the challenge review, show us the mascot relay race, show us the kiss cam.
yes, you can, and I would expect an "ad-free" service to do so, at minimum replace it with a "commercial break" sign and preferably adding extra commentary.
LMAO I’m glad I stopped using Hulu’s service as they are a corpo dumpster fire; streaming was always doomed to become shitty because corporations can’t help but screw up good things. They intentionally waited for the shift in Administration to be as bullshit as possible.
Someone get Louis on the phone. There is another article for the Consumer Action Taskforce database waiting to be written.
Beating will continue until morale improves
This isn’t new. They’ve been doing that since Agents of SHIELD was on the air. They would start with “this is not included in the no ads plan.”
Yep. Worked there for a bit. They're contractually obligated to show ads on certain content. Doesn't matter what tier you're on. As a paying customer (a rather long time ago), my partner became so incensed at the ads that played even though he paid for ad-free that he rage-cancelled his membership.
Surely the FTC will have some to say about this oh wait
But the CEO of proton assures me that this administration will stand up for the little guy and nominate someone who will do good antitrust work!
If you can prove a contradiction then you can prove anything, and here we have
¬ads = ads. BRB there's some stuff I want to prove that I have.let p = ads, thus p = np. Where is my prize money?
Sorry bro, but you're too late. I already proved p ~= np in the same manner.
Yup, just another reason to sail the seas, which is sad because I liked streaming while it lasted.
But become your own streaming service:
https://www.smarthomebeginner.com/docker-home-media-server-2018-basic/
This is some "boneless wings may contain bones" bullshit, fuck Hulu.
