Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Although I use Hulu quite a bit- I've always watched The Daily Show on thedailyshow.com. I'm not sure why- maybe it goes up sooner there.

I tell you what though, if I have to watch another K-Y jelly vaginal stimulant commercial on Hulu I'm going to lose it.

Now is the time for somebody with a half decent micro-pay model to walk up to viacom and offer them a sweeter deal than running their own half assed web-streaming servers.

I would happily pay $0.10 - $0.25 for 3-5 day, ad free, viewing rights to an episode of a show, and $0.05 - $0.15 for back catalog shows, I'm willing to wager that viacom makes much less than that in ad revenue per view/episode.

Hulu, is a beach front in the internet IP wars, it made watching stuff easy, and the experience was pleasant enough that we watched ads, and figured it was a fair deal, when we could just be torrenting this stuff for free.

I think Hulu understands that it is competing with free, I don't think viacom got the memo yet.

Unfortunately viacom is holding all the cards, I'll be watching on their site, but I would wager that they will not get even half the traffic hulu got, and will end up with less money in their pockets at the end of the day. Unless viacom intends to try to compete with a broad hulu like service, I think they will find that they just shot themselves in the foot.

I don't know where micro-payments are a good fit, it is hard to beat "free" psychologically. It seems like micro-payments right now are most successful offering over-priced "premium" niche content. Content providers can increase the cost on a larger population of users more easily over time if the content is thought to be free.

Hulu ads often get on my nerves but in another year or so I'll probably be willing to put up with full KY jelly vaginal stimulant themes and jingles while I'm eating lunch in front of coworkers at the office.

>> ^lesserfool:
I don't know where micro-payments are a good fit, it is hard to beat "free" psychologically.

But we have been paying, we have been paying with our time. The economic absurdity is that my time is worth more to me than it is worth to an advertiser, I like the shows I like, I would be happy to pay for them to be made. I would happily pay more than advertisers will pay for my eyeballs. When we do the math I think most people would be happy to do the same, if it is made simple, and pleasant, and the pricing is somewhere around what my eyeball-time is worth to somebody else.

I'll drop a quarter in a parking meter when I need to go in somewhere for 5min. I do this both for the ease, and for the protection from the liability of a parking ticket. I would be happy to do the same, drop a quarter or less, for a half hour of easy to access programming, instead of bothering with, or risking the litigation from, torrenting.

i-tunes sells these shows for what a buck a piece? That's many times what they are worth to advertisers, I think knowing that is what tips the balance and makes free-but-risky a better proposition in most peoples minds. I viscerally agree with that math, but I think there is a happy medium, the transaction friction has been dropping for a long time now, I think it about time for micro-payments to test the waters, these two shows would be the perfect test bed.

I loled.
>> ^dag:
I tell you what though, if I have to watch another K-Y jelly vaginal stimulant commercial on Hulu I'm going to lose it.