Hulu is finally offering a much-rumored subscription service, and I am not impressed. For ten bucks a month you get a stunning backlog of streaming TV shows that are . . . already available on Netflix for two dollars less. Hulu Plus subscribers will be offered shows in dazzling 720p. Well, at least the paid service probably won’t have commercials. Oh, what’s that? It will? Oh.

So . . . it’s like Netflix . . . but more expensive . . . with just TV and no movies . . . and you have to pay extra for apps to play it on your devices . . . and it still has advertisments. That warrants an extra unmotivated “Meh.”

There’s not one word about whether or not this new service will improve the quality of the service, namely the whisper-quiet audio on the shows and the ear-splitting volume of the advertising. We tolerate that on Hulu because it’s free. I really doubt users are going to be super stoked about parting with hard-earned cash to pay for repetitive noisy ads and TV shows that need to be put through a nuclear-powered amplifier to be heard.

Hulu Plus will probably feature TV shows sooner than Netflix, which has to wait for a show to come out on DVD before it can stream the content or ship it to your house on a disc. So what? There’s so much good stuff to catch up on that I don’t feel the need to keep up on shows as they come out. When TV was a one-shot deal, you had to tune in at the prescribed time. On-demand digital content has changed all of that. I don’t need to conform my schedule to the gods of the TV network. Like curling up with a good book, I can watch whatever I want, without ads to damage the narrative. Watching on-demand ad-free television has made an enormous change in my ability to enjoy a show. I can be ready to enjoy it, pause it when I need to, and can follow the development of plot and characters without having to listen to anybody pimp toothpaste and tampons every five minutes. I’m more likely to notice if a show is good or bad. I can disregard inferior content and save my valuable time by only watching the good stuff.

My standards for entertainment are raised. I’m not at the mercy of whatever happens to be on, and I can choose a service that doesn’t subject me to advertising. Hulu Plus, you will not get my cash for the service you are currently offering, and I suspect others will be similarly nonplussed. Hulu Plus isn’t offering anything I can’t get better and cheaper from Netflix. To put it more clearly: I’d torrent TV shows before I would pay ten bucks to watch ads. Hulu isn’t a bad deal, but it needs to decide what it wants to be. Hulu is currently the bargain bin of legal online entertainment. What’s on there is somewhat limited, but it’s free so we overlook its shortcomings. But if it wants to be a premium service, it shouldn’t half-ass the transition.

Hey, Hulu: drop the ads, offer a giant movie catalog, fix the audio issues and make your premium service truly premium by offering 1020p HD video. Oh, and knock three bucks off the price. Then maybe I’ll come back around to you.