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I remember when Hulu was free
I never trusted it. It was the first big move by tv/movie studios to stream their own IP instead of Netflix, and the beginning of the fractious mess of media services we now have. It was also very evident that it being "free" (with ads, of course) was just a way to pull in users to squeeze later with steadily increasing subscriptions. An example of actual "enshitiffication", a dumb word which nobody uses correctly.
The day they announced their “pay with ads” subscription was the day they were dead to me. I think they walked it back but never cared enough to check.
Capitalism isn't what's crashing out the United States, it's these fucking monopolies and mergers. The government used to block these things with vigor. When I was a GenX kid, we were taught over and over again that monopolies are bad, with plenty of historical examples. Hell, I remember AT&T getting splatted then coming back together later.
Our news and social media, banking, entertainment, our farms, our very food stuffs are owned by a handful of megacorps like Nestle. Want to withhold your money? Good luck finding the competition capitalism used to offer, because now we're an oligarchy. And no matter what personal stand you take, your friends and neighbors don't know all this and don't care.
Lina Kahn was breaking this shit up under Biden. Knowing Trump would fire her immediately was the first thought I had on waking and learning he had won again. Fuck. She was our last, great hope.
In the past few decades we let the rich buy our morals. Then they got richer. Rinse and repeat.
The corporations decided that anti trust laws were bad so they each did their part to erode support and enforcement of them. Then bit by bit they eventually became only laws on the books not in enforcement
That's a fucking bingo. Sometimes I imagine telling my grandfather who raised me and died in the 80s what America is like today.
"So why isn't the government doing anything about all this? That's their job."
"Well..."
Capitalism isn't what's crashing out the United States, it's these fucking monopolies and mergers.
I've got bad news for you about which form of social organization promotes the growth of monopolies.
There have been a handful of examples of breaking up monopolies but even then the general trend was still increasing consolidation of money and power in fewer and fewer hands.
AT&T was a great example of a step back from the capitalist hellscape we're being pushed into, but there were two steps forward before it and another two after it.
What form of social organization doesn't when not corrected over time?
Capitalism is directly responsible for monopolies and meegers. It's the inevitable course. Anyone who disagrees is definitely did not take any classes on business. A goal of many MBA's is to be merged into a larger company for a massive payout. That is capitalism.
Capital is like gravity, it pulls more capital towards it into its a singularity of one massive lump of capital. We have to create laws to reign in capitalism.
The issue with capitalism is as we're experiencing now, there are no natural laws to keep capitalism is check.
In an ideal world, the only way a company would merge is after bankruptcy. There is literally no social benefit to justify it. The MBAs are more than willing to blow smoke up our collective asses about it.
Capitalism isn’t what’s crashing out the United States, it’s these fucking monopolies and mergers.
Incoherent slop
Ordinarily I’d be happy to see two major streaming services combine, (fragmentation is the main problem with streaming today) but Disney is just the worst.
Everything the mouse touches is tainted.
I have not spent any money on Star Wars since the mouse bought it. Fuck it, it's now evil. I have not bought anything Marvel since it became a princess. They have become comic book diarrhea. Those new Doctor Who shows? I haven't seen a single one; to me, they are not canon. As a fan since the 70s, Doctor Who is dead to me because of the fucking mouse. Disney is a borg, all borg need to die.
Disney and the mouse need to die and lose all IP. My reasons for hating the mouse are private, but valid. If you knew an artist that worked for the mouse, I'm sure you'd agree with my private reasons.
I thought Doctor Who was still owned by the BBC?
What did Hulu say about Trump to deserve this?
Can’t wait to see what Futurama says about this in the first episode in their next season…
In the U.S., Hulu content will gradually merge into Disney+ as part of a unified app experience.
I guess that's a move in the right direction. Still not going back though 🏴☠️
Never got into Hulu. Didn’t it always have ads even if you were paying?
You can pay to remove the ads, same as Disney. I think I pay $20 to have both without ads and get $12 cashback with my CC
Disney/Hulu was one of the few streaming services I didnt mind paying for with their content/price/no ads. Then they had to fuck up with Kimmel and raise prices.
I remember when it was free…. Back in my day.
TIL Hulu is still around.
Only Murders In The Building is pretty good and the new season is ongoing. I don't have much to say about it beyond that though.
this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2025
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