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’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.
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
This is the TL;DR of what was updated. This is not the actual ToS.
Not defending, just pointing that out.
It’s… an excerpt, provided by Hulu from the full document, saying what they are allowing themselves to do with our money. It doesn’t have to be the entire EULA, word-for-word…
deleted by creator
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
I’m interested to know if Hulu is under pressure from content owners here. The way this is worded makes it sound like ads are a negotiated part of some of their content licensing deals that they cannot avoid. I’m just curious if that’s in part because of the content owners. Maybe those owners don’t want to give content for a flat fee and instead want a % cut of the business, or something?
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.
People who grew up with ads were okay with it because the shows and movies were free.
In the antenna days, sure, but cable and satellite sure weren’t free.
I’m from Australia so maybe things were different there, but my parents had cable in the 1990s and 2000s and I don’t remember there being ads back then other than promotions for different shows on the same channel. I haven’t used cable since maybe 2006 so it’s definitely possible it’s changed since then.
I know the US cable channels have a lot of ads these days, but I moved to the USA in 2013 and don’t have experience of how it was like before then.
The antenna days are still here. I’ve got a HDHomeRun and use it with TiviMate and Plex. It’s great for local news/shows and gameshows. I find new restaurants through local shows that review restaurants for example.
There were ads on cable channels as far back as I remember. We got cable in '85 or '86. HBO didn’t have ads during the program, but every other channel sure did.
HBO had ads for the other content on HBO (movie trailers, show ads) which also served as filler so the next show or movie could start on the hour or half hour. Definitely a different kind of ad, and it didn’t interrupt what you were watching.
Still ads, but the least intrusive kind.
during the program
Hence the qualifier.
I cancelled everything but paramount recently. Just cant quit star trek. Until I fix my DNS server at least
Yarrr, matey!
Eh, they just don’t want my money. I had a Netflix account back in the day. Ad-free and most everything was there. They’ve all fallen so far. Storage is pretty damn cheap these days, and torrents are a-plenty.
I’ve got a jellyfin server but I fucked my routing and haven’t fixed it.
Have you tried ejecting your DNS server’s warp core?
Have you tried FIRE PHOTON TORPEDOS ?
(Miss you GravitySync)
Private Torrents
That’s why I pay for hulu+++×+
It’s guaranteed you’ll never see an ad*
*unless Hulu determines it is justified
Well, it’s ad-free as long as you consume at least one verification can every 10 minutes
You must shout “burger king” loud enough that it’s detected on 3 neighbors microphones
Beating will continue until morale improves
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.
Or Cervesa Cristal
There’s several shows where it was important to production that they had those as they would have been cancelled without it. Community and Chuck were both basically saved by Subway.
They’ll be forgiven when we finally get the goddamn community movie and they make their bread not shit.
The movie is in production right now. Allison Brie posted about rewatching the series to prepare
That’s why I added the bread bit so I wouldn’t actually have to forgive subway.
If those titles require ads, don’t include them in my feed. I don’t want to know they exist.
“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…
Yo ho yo ho
Often times the ads are included in live streamed content like sports. Sports that don’t have ads like older MLB streams just show a weird “we will be back soon” title card because they are just simulcasting the cable broadcast.
🏴☠️
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.
Jesus fucking christ.
Hasn’t Hulu had ads on their paid tiers for a long time now? I remember that being a big deal way back, so I never bothered with a subscription.
Yes! Hulu originally was 100% free because it had ads. The it became a monthly sub but never removed the ads. Then it split into what it is today with an ad option and an ad free option.
