Sure – we love free stuff! Free content on the web, unlimited videos on YouTube and season after season of Arrested Development on Hulu. So you can imagine how we got our knickers in a twist when we learnt that Hulu might start charging for its content. But Chadwick Matlin writes in The Big Money that Hulu might well have figured out how to save the internet!
Just last week, The New York Times announced that they were cutting 100 newsroom positions because they just weren’t making enough money. Readers wrote in that they were willing to pay for digital content if that means that jobs can be saved. Nobel thought indeed, but execution of that warm fuzzy intention can be dodgy!
Matlin writes in his piece that for years, the web has been a freeloader’s paradise. Content was free as websites were supported by ads. As ads dry up due to cutbacks, there’s only so much money sites can make. So if we want Hulu to be the best it can be, we need it to make the most money it can make. And the only way to do that is start charging for its content.
“It’s time we grow up and understand we’re going to have to pay for things we really love once they become successful,” says Matlin. “We’re getting too old to expect to crash on our friends’ couches without paying rent.”
Matlin also points out startups are monetizing earlier, content sites are reinventing their business models by sticking ads in cracks and crevices, and news sites are toying with the idea of pay walls. So the fact that Hulu may start charging for content both legitimizes the site’s business model and provides a test-case for other Internet companies moving away from the ad-supported revenue. “It’s time we grow up and understand we’re going to have to pay for things we really love once they become successful,” says Matlin. “We’re getting too old to expect to crash on our friends’ couches without paying rent.”
