You should pay for Hulu :) I bet that would annoy you more. I still can't believe you pay for hulu and still get ads all throughout the damn show. And not just ads. You see the same ads over and over and over.

Adblock Plus on Firefox (but not on Chrome) blocks the ads on Hulu (leaving gaps of blackness and silence).

In your opinion, is that better than viewing the ads?

Depends on the ads I suppose. I'm surprised that there aren't any services that say "hey , we're going to make you watch ads but we'll let you choose what categories of adverts you get"

That way I don't get constant adverts for women's skincare products and get stuff about new video games instead.

Hulu does let you choose in that every few weeks there's a short survey with questions like, How often do you go see first-run movies? Hulu claims that the purpose of the surveys is to customize my "ad experience".

You can also click on "Ad Swap" at the top of every single ad and choose what out of three choices you'd rather see. Honestly I don't see the problem with ads on Hulu Plus. I'm paying for additional licensing fees and being able to watch the videos on any device I own.

Ah , I'm in the UK so no Hulu available to me. The British TV channels have online services but they're typically the same 4 or 5 ads in rotation over and over again (except the BBC of course) and don't appear to be targeted at all.

For me it is vastly better. Stupendously better.

I like movie previews. Am I the only one?

No, you're not. I could do without the TV-like nonsense that runs in between shows, though - I can actually tolerate a blank screen.

I'm talking about "commercials" - not previews.

I love movie previews.

Some theaters I go to play commercials (i.e. ads for products) before the movie previews.

I would be more tolerant if there were 2 listed times: (1) when the previews will begin; (2) when the movie will begin.

Trailers were once shown after films finished, but theatres changed that to force people to watch them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trailer_(promotion)

For most theaters there are. Our local chain in my hometown started the actual film exactly fifteen minutes after the advertised time, and the same is true for the theaters where I live now.

That's interesting. I would think there would be some kind of agreement with theaters and movie right suppliers to show the previews.

What do you do about getting good seats? If you show up just as the movie is starting, you're probably going to get bad seats.

Movie theaters where I live let you choose the seats when buying tickets.

Most seats are numbered except in smaller cinemas.

If you have pre-allocated seating, the cinema may have to employ people to ensure people are sitting in the right place (at least, people will want someone to complain to if someone else stole their seat).

But more importantly, pre-allocated seats encourages people to show up late to the screening and miss the ads and trailers, and potentially even miss out on the concession stand. If you don't have pre-allocated seats, you need to turn up early to be assured of a good seat; and what are you going to do in the (initially darkened) cinema waiting by yourself, if not consume some snacks that you bought.

The cinemas around me (London) charge extra for the privilege of pre-allocation.

> If you have pre-allocated seating, the cinema may have to employ people to ensure people are sitting in the right place (at least, people will want someone to complain to if someone else stole their seat).

Is this really a problem? All cinemas in Norway (that I know of) have pre-allocated seating, but there is never anybody who ensures that people sit in the right place. If you find that someone is sitting in your seat, you simply tell them to move. I've never heard of anyone refusing to move.

> All cinemas in Norway (that I know of) have pre-allocated seating

I've watched movies in cinemas all over North America, and the only one that ever had numbered seating was a dinner-and-a-movie place where your seat was used to keep track of your order.

Nearly all the "stadium" seating theaters around me in Utah use numbered seating for every movie for at least it's first opening week, but they're largely all owned by one guy (well, his corporation, as he personally passed away a few years ago). It's more of a courtesy so larger families and groups can manage to pick up seats together, but it's still enforced if it needs to be.

Probably a big-city problem.

At my local cinema you can select your seat when you reserve tickets.

I don't go there much since it is too expensive and it isn't kept clean but at least the seats are numbered.

The local cinema were we use to live didn't have numbered seats and was much more cozy.

This might be just regional - none of the larger cinemas in my area do this (yet).

I like movie previews, and even some commercials. What I hate is anything that interrupts the show or movie that I'm watching.

I would more than happily sit through a long block of all the commercials before the show if it meant that I could watch the show, in its entirety and without interruption.

I can't find it, but I recall a conversation with Joss Whedon who proclaims the commercial interruption to be the hardest thing in TV-writing to accomodate, and are the most jarring obstacle to an otherwise well-told story.

I like them, though I've seen most of them already. It's still enjoyable to see them on the big screen.

> Nothing annoys me more than paying for a movie ticket and sitting through 10 minutes of commercials before a film.*

A month of Netflix costs much less than a single movie ticket. Sometimes I wonder how they manage to keep the subscription rate so low without advertising.