Hulu Blocks Boxee: "Against stupidity..."
"Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain." — Friedrich Schiller
One of the best things to happen to Apple TV is Boxee, the wonderful media center software that runs on that platform (as well as Mac and Linux, plus Windows in Alpha...). Boxee is an easy-to-install media center that supports a wide variety of plugins that bring internet-based content to you — and using it with Apple TV means that content can be seen where it should be seen — on your big-screen HDTV.
One of the best things that has happened to Boxee is a plug-in connection to Hulu, the News Corp/NBC Universal website offering streaming movies and current TV shows containing advertising. Hulu allows you to see your favorite shows when you want to see them, and the Apple TV/Boxee combination brought that Hulu content directly to your TV so you could watch with your family. (No, there's no link provided to Hulu. You'll understand why in a bit...)
Of course, any such perfection is anathema to the dungeon-dwelling trolls that run the video content industry. This was too good to last, and true to form the trolls have killed it, as if it were a butterfly they felt compelled to stomp into dust because it was just too beautiful to be allowed to live.
The whole concept of Hulu is to create a legal place for people to see contemporary TV shows on their own time schedule while creating revenue for the content providers through ads. It is designed to give people who want to watch TV on demand with a quality alternative to piracy. This is the content providers' own creation. It is popular and it works — but it leaves the content trapped on the computer screen in your office, when where you want it is on the big screen in your family room.
Boxee and Apple TV in combination freed that content to be where the overwhelming majority of viewers want it to be, so that many more people could see those shows — and the ads attached to them. What could possibly be wrong with that? Everyone wins. Viewers get their programs where they want them. Boxee gets more users. Hulu gets more visitors. Advertisers get more eyeballs on their ads. Content providers get less piracy and more ad income.
But the trolls that run the content providers don't want everyone to win. They don't even care if they win, too. If everyone is happy, they are unhappy. So the content providers (who, you will recall, founded Hulu and own Hulu) have decreed that Hulu must block Boxee from connecting to Hulu's content. There's an entry on Hulu's blog which basically says "hey, it isn't our fault", but the content providers own Hulu. And it is the content providers that say the Hulu/Boxee connection must end.
Why?
Because they're stupid. And "against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain".
You can't gain anything by negotiating with stupid trolls. They aren't capable of seeing and reacting to situations rationally, even to see when a situation is clearly to their advantage. They don't care if they hurt themselves as long as they do damage to anyone who might be seen, through their narrow little troll eyes, as potentially changing their world. Not even the gods can battle stupidity. The only thing you can do is stay out of the way and wait for the stupid trolls to die.
Again and again, the Mighty Mavens of Video have resisted change, not to any rational end, but just to exercise their power because they can. They seem to have no idea that their efforts to tell people when and where they should and should not be able to see content has done nothing to protect the creators' right to profit from their creations. In fact, their knee-jerk resistance to any sort of change in their business model has left billions of available dollars on the table that could have been in their coffers. They don't get it. I'm convinced at last that they are never going to get it.
The folks at Boxee haven't given up. They are going to meet with the Hulu content providers and try to convince them to change their minds. I wish them well. Perhaps they will find that all of those people aren't trolls after all. But based on past behavior, that's not where the smart money is bet.
As for the CouchGuy, I only started using Hulu when Boxee on the Apple TV made it possible for me to watch Hulu-based programs on my HDTV, and when that capability is gone Hulu again becomes irrelevant to my world. Sorry, Hulu. You spent a lot of money on that expensive Super Bowl ad with Alec Baldwin for nothing. The people who are seeing that ad on television want to see Hulu content on television. If you only want people to watch on their computers, advertise only on their computers. Guess what? There are a lot more CouchGuys than computer guys. And you just told them you don't want their business. You just told your advertisers that you want to arbitrarily and foolishly limit the number of people who see their ads. Stupid.
The trolls won't learn, so the only thing to do is wait for them to die. The old guard eventually does, and leaves room for the people who grew up in the new world to take charge. It takes awhile, but it happens eventually. (The CouchGuy is of the older generation, too, so I may not outlive the damned trolls. That just makes me hate them more.)
So viewers, advertisers — just let them die. Don't feed them. Leave them to their self-destructive ways until they perish of their self-inflicted wounds.
Meanwhile, there's lots of other great channels of entertainment on Boxee and Apple TV. Let's watch them instead.
you really show how little you understand of the business model. The only way Hulu passed the muster of the cable companies, to whom the distributors get millions of dollars a year, was to keep Hulu limited to computers and not tread into the cable TV space. It's pretty simple! If you owned Comcast would you may Fox $23 million next year if they were supporting a FREE service that stole your customers using a system that's supported by the money you pay! It's sure not supported by the ads yet. Anyway, it will eventually happen but to be a jerk and single out Hulu as "stupid" is pretty lame. Look in the mirror!
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The "stupid" in the equation is not Hulu, per se -- it is the content providers who with one hand create Hulu and with the other hand want to keep it crippled. Cable operators "complete" with DVD sales and FREE digital HD broadcast TV of the exact same TV show content already. Are the content providers going to shut those revenue sources down, too? Hardly. Perhaps the cable operators do expect the content providers to forever protect their business model for them, but that business model is already in trouble. Protectionism measures never save a dying business model in the long run.
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Well said, sir. When I first stumbled onto Hulu last year, I was suitably impressed -- after all, here was a service with decent video (which only improved after they started serving up "high def" versions of their video)and an ad model that made sense. After all, why are we seeing MORE advertising with shows that are, in some cases decades old? 15 to 30 second ad breaks are so short that it's NOT WORTH SKIPPING THEM.
What makes this even more moronic are those of us who just plug our MacBooks directly into our TV's HDMI can still get those full screen TV viewings. Hell, any appropriately equipped computer can do this, even Ubuntu based systems.
Not to mention there are Boxee open source alternatives that really couldn't care what the "content providers" think about their efforts, and no central authority to sue out of existence.
I agree that our only hope is to outlive the trolls. In the mean time, Illegitimi non carborundum!
John....
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Amen, John! The people who make the money have always been the ones who recognize it early when the paradigm is shifting and find a way to make a buck off giving the public what it wants, the way it wants. The movie studios fought hard to kill TV until the old guard died off and those providers who embraced TV made a pile. They did the same when home video recording came along - and video sales ended up being the thing that saved the movie industry. Those who fight direct digital distribution will be the losers. Once again, the upstart new tech that terrifies the industry is likely to be what saves it in spite of itself. But we'll apparently, once more, have to wait for the pea-brained dinosaurs to die off first.
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