It's working now, didn't work a few hours ago. Wondering if Hulu noticed it themselves or if they needed a reminder ,-)

MrWatch said:

What's the buisness logic in having it free for viewing again?  I'm not complaining, but I'm sort of trying to figure out what this move means…

My first guess was curiosity, if and how much it affects their sales via ITunes.

Second guess is simply allowing more people to see it that only heard about it after the fact, hoping that as a result more people will buy the DVD than figure that they saw it often enough now. But then, there's no reason to expect it airing on TV every once in a while, so buying it might be the only way to watch it again in a couple years.

Third guess: seeing how it's all over filesharing networks and YouTube, maybe there was no point in not offering an official stream.

Of course Joss was posting something about Hulu hosting it for free, plus, there are now commercials. So maybe it actually IS a way to make back some of the invested money. Again, hard to tell whether the little money it might bring in now is killing some DVD sales that would have brought more or if the additional potential buyers will actually result in higher DVD sales. Time will tell… or not, because we have nothing to compare the results with.