This weekend, Hulu and Roku are offering two months of free streaming to new customers. Where “new” generally means new email address. Given the imminent arrival of Showtime on Hulu (for an additional fee), I figured I’d strike while the iron is hot. However, the signup process was something of a turn off. Hulu, Roku, or maybe both require a gender and birth year to complete the registration process and surely feed their advertising initiatives. Obviously those can be spoofed if one so chooses, but I played along. However, where they lost me is Roku, versus Hulu, requiring a credit card on file.
I suppose it’s not much different than Apple hanging onto my info for iPhone app purchases, but I’m just not interested. In fact, I’ve gone out of my way to create Roku account without a credit card. So I passed. Look, between TiVo-ed shows, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and HBO GO, I gots plenty of commercial-free content. Too much, in fact.