Hulu was almost universally mocked when it came into existence.  News Corp and NBC building an online video site?  Everyone knew it was going to be a laughable, worthless waste of our time.  It would be poor quality, poor selection, built using some proprietary plugin (probably Windows only), wrapped in DRM, and short-lived.

But then, a funny thing happened.  Hulu rocked.  Lots of content, perfectly watchable quality, and built-on top of Flash, a more or less universally accepted plugin.   The ads seemed like a great compromise – present but not overwhelming like on TV.  By all accounts, Hulu was a win for both content providers and users.

One of the best features of Boxee is its integration with Hulu.  On-demand access to any of the Hulu content integrated into a media center interface, Boxee was at the forefront of a media revolution.  A unified media center interface aggregating my local media content with internet content is quite simply exactly what I’ve wanted since I first got an HDTV.

As typical consumers become more savvy, they too will become more and more of an on-demand viewer.  The idea of being tied to a TV at a given time became passe as soon as TiVo came into existence.  The inferior, generic DVRs pushed out by the cable companies at low cost, only reinforced the idea of video on-demand to a wider market.  The next logical step is on-demand video delivered over the internet.  Despite all expectations typical with a product delived by “big media”, Hulu looked set to become the de facto standard for exactly that sort of thing.  

Alas, Hulu announced yesterday that it was blocking access from Boxee.  Instantly, Hulu went from media darling to online pariah.  This act is a perfect example of why big media still doesn’t get it.  Even more galling, no explanation was given other than some “content providers” requested that access be removed.    It’s hard to even fathom a reason why they would make this move.  The content displayed within Boxee was not different in any way from the content displayed on the website.  The ads, so important to those content providers, were still present.  All Boxee did was provide an integration; if anything, further expanding the audience of potential viewers.

Hopefully, Hulu will get their act together.  It’s unlikely that the tiny demographic of Boxee users will have any influence whatsoever in fixing this wrong though the large internet outcry does bode well.  Still, it’s unlikely Hulu will backtrack anytime soon and it will probably continue to do just fine for many users.  It will, however, have lost one user.