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Comment by tghw | Hacker News Reader

The 8-day policy never made any sense to me. Let's say I have a show I regularly watch live on Monday nights. Then one week, I miss it. Since I don't want to watch the episodes out of order, I can't watch new episodes live for the rest of the season unless I grab a pirated copy so I'm caught up before the next episode. Otherwise, I just skip one week and watch the rest of the season on Tuesdays via Hulu.

This just smells like corporate bureaucracy, and it is unfortunate, because it helps no one.

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The entire business model is based on people paying extra to watch "now".

If you look at the cost to watch a movie, the earlier you want it the more you pay.

It starts with theaters, then pay per view, then buy it, then expensive rentals, then cheap rentals, and finally tv movie. You have b-list theaters somewhere in the last as well, and I may have missed some other places.

If you are willing to wait to watch your shows you will pay a LOT less for them. But apparently most people are not willing to wait, otherwise this model would not work.

It's rather annoying when the rules are changed in the middle of the game. That's basically what happened here, with the final episodes of Master Chef (my current guilty pleasure) suddenly going to an eight day delay after the first 95% of the season was available on a one day delay.

I accidentally stumbled upon the winner of the show during my eight day wait for the episode to come to Hulu, and now I have no incentive to watch the final episodes and give Fox/Hulu whatever ad revenue they'd get from that.

The Hulu comments have been filled with angry viewers, some of which are listing the sites where people can go to pirate the show.

> I accidentally stumbled upon the winner of the show during my eight day wait for the episode to come to Hulu, and now I have no incentive to watch the final episodes and give Fox/Hulu whatever ad revenue they'd get from that.

So why watch the show at all? Wait until the end of the season and read the results on the Internet.

If you find yourself about to object, then perhaps you do have an incentive to watch the final episodes. Otherwise, I just saved you 12 hours of your life. ;)

There's a reason they are called "spoilers": They ruin much of the impact of the actual show without providing a corresponding reward.

Your suggestion is similar to saying, "So you've eaten five pounds of cupcakes and now you don't feel like eating a proper dinner? Either you don't need a proper dinner at all, or you really do want to eat this vegetable platter!"

My point was that the purpose of watching this kind of TV show isn't to gain specific knowledge; it's about the progression of events towards the goal.

I just finished "Star Trek: Voyager", so I'll use that as my example. In the first episode, they get stranded far away from home. You know they're going to make it home because that's how stories work. Does that make the show spoiled? Well, they saw reason to make 7 seasons of 24 episodes, so I'm guessing it wasn't spoiled.

Actually, studies[0] have shown that spoilers make stories more enjoyable.

[0] http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/08/spoilers-dont-spoi...

Studies found that spoilers make stories more enjoyable or one study involving a very homogeneous group found that people reported more enjoyment from stories they were forced to read if those stories had been spoiled?

I'm not sure there's actually enough evidence to even validate that study as showing what it appears to show, much less to generalize the result to all humans everywhere.

I find it hard to believe you don't understand why alanfalcon was ticked off (regarding the spoiler). Your example has nothing to do with the issue.

I honestly don't understand.

You can't draw solid conclusions from a single study with undergraduates.

Vader is Luke's father, Leia is his sister. Han shoots first. Vader also built 3p0. Jar-Jar Binks.

There. Saved you another 12 hours. You're welcome.

I think the point is that its the journey, not the destination.

I understand that. The problem is, at least for me, time is not enough of a differentiator to make it worth my while. If they removed commercials, for example, then it might be more compelling, but I'm hardly going to pay for a service and still be forced to watch ads.

Me too. But apparently we are in the minority, otherwise this business model would not work.

People like us who don't care can save a lot of money.

Does anyone know why the FOX considers an 8 day delay superior to a 6 day delay? Both are 'about' a week, but one sets you up to start watching the show live, while the other sets you up to stop watching the show.

Likewise, networks that start selling DVDs for season X only after season X+1 is underway. Seems to be almost the norm. Why not preserve the opportunity to convert customers to the most lucrative channel? At least with DVDs there's significant revenue involved.

Yep. If they have to extend it, 5-6 days would make a lot more sense for that exact reason. Nobody can catch up online anymore.

Relevant: http://xkcd.com/606/

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