Um. idiots, the BBC is doing the exact same thing. nobody outside of the UK can view their precious content online. (obviously bittorrent is available)

That's a matter of opinion of course.

Back in the early days of cable (70s & 80s), people signed up to get clear reception. And we were all happy to celebrate the end of the barely watchable picture with snow, ghosts, and the other anomolies of analog over the air TV gone. The additional content that was not availabe over the air was just a bonus.

Now, with the switch to digital broadcasting, that's all changed. With the same UHF/VHF antenna you had on your roof 25 years ago, "bad" over the air reception is pretty much a thing of the past. Depending on your distance from the local broadcast towers, either you get the station crystal clear or you don't get it all all. If you are at the very fringes of the signal's strength, you might notice some occasional pixelization. like watching a dirty DVD, but mostly, it's an all or nothing situation.

I'll wager that at least half of current Cable and FIOS subscribers
can now get perfect reception with an antenna and rotor that could be purchased for what you spend on 3-4 months of the typical
rebroadcaster's charges.

The question is, would you be willing to give up the cable only networks to get free TV? I did, but it's certainly not for everyone.

And the other question, relating to HULU is, will the TV networks be willing to give up half of their cash cow? The answer is NO! The networks have been getting paid from both ends (advertisers AND viewers) since cable was deregulated in the 80s. They are not going to give up the "viewer" end just because the Internet came along. Remember, the networks own Hulu. Sure, they might continue to offer the major network (Broadcast) shows without charge, because they know that many of you can get those free anyway for the cost of rabbit ears or a rooftop antenna. But they will eventually find a way to charge people for the "cable only" networks.

What you're hearing about today is only a temporary repieve.

I’d thought for a while that maybe they were just toying with us to get rid of all the (admittedly asinine) complaints about commercials. We watch hulu with commercials, because that way, we can watch it freely, legally, while supporting the programming and still watching it whenever we want without paying for TIVO or spending time programming our recorders. I think they might have let us believe for a little while that they were going to start charging for everything, just to get us to realize that.

(OTOH, one can only take so many Latisse commercials in a day, so in that sense, I can understand people’s complaints.)

In any case, I’m sure there are country specific availabilities to most things. I would highly appreciate being able to view many overseas shows, but am not able to due to country restrictions, so is it alright for me to write these countries off as irrelevant, or ignorant for not offering me, someone outside their core audience, their countrymen, some free way to watch their stuff? I get it legally by, you know, having an international satellite service. You only insult another country for not offering extended service to you, when you don’t even LIVE there, and say there is no other way for you to reach that content by no other means than illegally downloading it? Correction, there is no CHEAP way for you to reach that content, therefore you download illegally, and then go online and complain about ignorant Americans and argue semantics.