Hulu Plus, love it or hate it?

Well, those of you that use and love Hulu Plus I am happy for you. I am not one of those people. My wife likes it for some of the content that it has that some other services like Netflix or another service does not.

Usability

We use Hulu Plus on a ROKU. I wonder what trouble Hulu went to to create the interface since everyone else seems to use the genre style boxes that most everyone else uses. That style is simple and intuitive and many other services use it. However, Hulu has chosen to go with something that is, well, more confusing and hard to navigate. The interface is also sometimes unresponsive, you may try to pause a show, but it sometimes will simply not react to your command. And if you want to pause the show while a commercial is playing, sorry, you will have to wait.

Cost

The cost is competitive with the other services that I use or have used. We continue to use Netflix and Amazon Prime. However, besides a little more content there is something that Hulu has that those other services don't, commercials. I have to wonder what the revenue is that they get from that, whatever it is its not bringing down the price compared to others that offer similar content.

Content

Hulu does offer some content that the others don't, and that's the only draw that I think they have. By way of content they get seasons and episodes of shows more quickly in some cases. But the content that they offer that no one else does... the commercials. They are repetitive, mandatory, and becoming longer and more and more frequent. What I mean by repetitive is that the same commercial will play every time a commercial segment comes up, so its drilled into you. Sometimes they are even repeated in a segment of commercial time. Its also 2-3 commercials per segment. Mandatory because there is no way to not play it, you cannot skip it, and you cannot pay more to not see them. The frequency has gained over time too.  I can remember a time when there were maybe only a couple commercials played during a show, now there are 5 or more segments per 1 hour show.

Conclusion

We have not had the Hulu service now for some time. My wife wants it back though, she wants it for the new seasons or recent episodes that are not on the other competing services yet. But I don't want it, I don't like to pay for the commercials and don't want to support that scheme. I have not had cable or satellite now for years and don't want to go back to it or anything that resembles it. Also, there is still the interface that I despise, that alone is nearly enough to keep me away. I don't care what shows it has or that it has some of the seasons earlier than the others, I will wait for them to be available on one of the others services, commercial free and easy to navigate.