I Hate Hulu.com

I live in Canada.

If I try to load a video from Hulu.com, the following message appears:

We’re sorry, currently our video library can only be streamed within the United States.  For more information on Hulu’s international availability, click here.

If you’re inside the United States and believe you’ve received this message in error, please click here.

So, yes, this is annoying.

But what is even more annoying is that supposedly targeted Canadian media sources (like google.ca’s video search) include Hulu.com videos.

Hulu.com should be dropped from all Canadian search results.  It is useless to us, and very annoying.

Posted in internet. Tagged with , .
  • http://www.stepforth.com Ross Dunn

    Hey Paul, I am with ya man, I wish we could enjoy the coolness that is Hulu but there are other options. Here are the links to 3 sites that have most if not all the shows on TV and we can watch em up here in da North eh:

    - http://watch.ctv.ca/
    - http://www.citytv.com/vancouver/tvshows.aspx
    - http://www.globaltv.com/globaltv/video/index.html

    At least this way we get the benefits of Hulu – mostly. As usual we have to go the lame route but so be it.

    Cheers.

  • Alex

    I’m not a fan of watching TV shows on the computer anyway. I much prefer a standard TV and although Shaw claims a good game, I’ve given up watching streaming on their so-called high speed. I’m not in favor of Hulu being dropped from Canadian search results because that’s censorship and frankly it’s as bad as the “geolocking” that has made Hulu and other sites like NBC.com and BBC.co.uk useless.

    You can avoid Hulu results showing up by putting “-hulu” in the search box (at least that works for Google).

    I do feel, though, that we as non-Americans need to make our voices heard whenever someone tries to shill Hulu as the next great thing, especially if (and this scenario bugs me) we start seeing more content going Hulu-exclusive. I’m waiting for the first Hulu-exclusive TV series, for example. To be fair, most Americans don’t realize Hulu isn’t available outside the US, so whenever someone tells us “oh just go to Hulu”, we need to remind them gently but firmly of the truth of the matter.

    Other than that, until the Hulu site becomes truly worldwide I’m not recognizing it as legitimate.

    • http://www.paulholmes.ca Paul Holmes

      Many of the superbowl ads were only available (initially) on Hulu. I didn’t watch the game this year, because I figured I could watch the ads later online. It was a hell of a task trying to find them, because everyone embedded Hulu. This was part of the inspiration for the original article. Very, very annoying.

  • John_Matthias

    The problem is that the people who have the distribution rights for Canada have been seriously negligent in showing them. We're dominated by an idiotic media oligarchy that relies on manipulating government policy for their profit, rather than provide original content. The practical upshot is that they rely on regurgitating American programming for their profit, but as they don't understand the new market models, microtransactions, etc, they want to maximize their profit by limiting our on-line access. The Americans can't show stuff in Canada because they'd be infringing on those distribution rights. Personally I think geolocking should be fought tooth and nail. It portends to the corporate ambition of locking down all content on the internet.

  • John_Matthias

    The problem is that the people who have the distribution rights for Canada have been seriously negligent in showing them. We’re dominated by an idiotic media oligarchy that relies on manipulating government policy for their profit, rather than provide original content. The practical upshot is that they rely on regurgitating American programming for their profit, but as they don’t understand the new market models, microtransactions, etc, they want to maximize their profit by limiting our on-line access. The Americans can’t show stuff in Canada because they’d be infringing on those distribution rights. Personally I think geolocking should be fought tooth and nail. It portends to the corporate ambition of locking down all content on the internet.

  • http://www.ihatehulu.net/ Ian

    Since the first time one of my friends linked me a Hulu video and I was unable to watch it I've been frustrated and annoyed by them and many of the American network sites not showing us content.

    In the long run It's really not a big deal, life will go on as it always has and eventually we'll be able to either use Hulu or another service that is similar. Our own Canadian networks streaming content is getting better and better, thankfully.

    Sadly it's not really Hulu's fault, at least not 100%.

    I hope that content will eventually be for the masses, but as long as there is money to be made, that probably won't happen easily.

  • http://www.ihatehulu.net/ Ian

    Since the first time one of my friends linked me a Hulu video and I was unable to watch it I’ve been frustrated and annoyed by them and many of the American network sites not showing us content.

    In the long run It’s really not a big deal, life will go on as it always has and eventually we’ll be able to either use Hulu or another service that is similar. Our own Canadian networks streaming content is getting better and better, thankfully.

    Sadly it’s not really Hulu’s fault, at least not 100%.

    I hope that content will eventually be for the masses, but as long as there is money to be made, that probably won’t happen easily.

  • roanmairin

    Try Hotspot Sheild. It will solve your problem.

  • roanmairin

    Try Hotspot Sheild. It will solve your problem.

  • roanmairin

    Try Hotspot Sheild. It will solve your problem.

  • Shaungratton

    Hulu tried to tell me that they won’t come to Canada until we get a better infrastructure to handle their site.
    It’s a load of garbage with services like shaws 100Mbps download.
    You can’t tell me that’s to slow when PA and Ohio lose internet for pretty much the whole state after 1 wind storm.
    I think they just don’t want to expand outside America.
    Which is fine, but just say so instead of dragging us along.
    I guess all my money will keep going to netflix and funimation for the time being.
    Poor Hulu.

  • http://softwarebuzzer.com/ Suresh Kumar

    I may be commenting here so many years after :) but the solution is here
    http://softwarebuzzer.com/2013/02/how-to-access-and-watch-hulu-netflix-pandora-outside-us/ Just by using a browser extension we can able to bypass that error.