‘Hulu Plus’ isn’t a Thing Anymore

It’s tough to keep all of these streaming services straight these days, right? HBO Go vs HBO Now? Amazon Prime vs Amazon Instant Video?  Or is it Amazon Streaming Video? Anyway, Hulu is eliminating at least one brand name from the cornucopia of non-words that plague the streaming industry at the moment.

Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins, speaking at Hulu’s NewFront presentation Wednesday, said that having two brands is confusing to customers:

“We’re going to be Hulu minus the Plus”

Sounds simple enough. So if you want to subscribe to  Hulu’s premium service you just pay up!  No need for a name change. This is similar to Spotify’s model where it’s just called “Spotify” to most. The separation between their premium service and their free one isn’t as stark as “plus vs not plus”.

Or is it?  Maybe this is even more confusing. Perhaps Hulu just didn’t like the branding implications of “Plus”.  No word of their business or pricing models changing.  It’ll be just the name drop for now.