Hulu Asks Boxee To Not Be A Browser...

Thats about the size of it. it would be the same as if Internet Explorer became really good at displaying and organizing media and Hulu said to them "Oh, wow that makes our content providers uncomfortable... can you stop?"

Here is the story from their respective blog posts:
http://blog.boxee.tv/
blog.hulu/doing-hard-things

And here is the post I made at the hulu.com user message boards:

I just wanted to say that even if Hulu never returns to boxee, I will STILL be dropping my cable service. I will make due with content from other sources that remain available via Boxee. (long live Netflix!) I think many other users like me are tired of being treated so poorly and having ridiculous bundling packages forced down our throats. I honestly believe that cable and satellite companies could have used their influence, wealth and power to make something like Hulu/Boxee happen MANY years ago and they and the content providers could have had absolute control over it... But they were all too driven by greed and ended up treating their customers like they were morons.

Well I am afraid that after a long wait, the genie is out of the bottle and under the command of the customers. No matter how you try to shove him back in, he will slip through your fingers like so much pink smoke. If these moves manage to damage Boxee, what is to stop someone from creating a free "Hulu viewer" based on open source browser code with many of the same advantages? And maybe these people won't have the same respect for the imbedded advertising and will find some way to allow users to mask it? Perhaps THAT will become the standard for how people view Hulu on a "living room monitor"

And not to beat a dead horse, but as many others have mentioned there is the piracy issue, hopefully I can ad a slightly different perspective. As a musician, photographer and short film maker, I don't want to see file sharing become the standard of our society because ultimately it leaves little room for small independents and creators of genuinely unique content to monetize due to the fact that it creates a culture that lacks respect for creative people. (It helps to dislike the people you steal from and think of them all as rich and arrogant even if that clearly is not true.) But if people behind this move continue with the old way of thinking... more and more people will be lead down the wrong path and everyone who creates and consumes media will suffer in the long run.

So on the constructive side, can I ask why not create a separate stream for TV bound browsers like boxee (there will eventually be many...) and pop in a few more ads? I doubt many of us would mind, as long as it stayed well below the ridiculous amount of broadcast TV. Most of us understand the unspoken contract of "TV" is that the ads pay for the content and that it has never been "Free" no matter what an Alec Bladwin shaped alien says. (BTW, thanks for propagating the myth amongst young people that they somehow "deserve" free TV. It makes it much harder to argue the point that TV has a price and that downloading is wrong to a young teenager when a TV star/alien told him that TV was free. : P) --I sincerely hope this can be resolved, and thank you for reading.

Without Hulu Boxee is quite hobbled, but I expect it to be worked out. I am serious though. I will just do without Hulu if they don't kiss and make up. The cable companies had decades to find a solution that made sense and they squandered my trust... now let them be regulated to what they really are... a utility. And just like my water, trash, electric and gas... I expect that internet connection to be fast and on all the time.