The Hulu app is reportedly on "life support" and set to be "decommissioned" as Disney continues its aggressive push to consolidate everything under the Disney+ umbrella. If you're experiencing déjà vu, that's because we've seen this movie before—it's called Cable TV 2.0: This Time It's Digital.

Remember when streaming was supposed to disrupt the cable bundle? Remember when we celebrated cutting the cord, escaping the tyranny of paying for 200 channels we never watched? Well, congratulations: we've come full circle.

Disney now owns Hulu outright after buying out Comcast's remaining stake. The logical move—from a corporate perspective—is to merge Hulu's library into Disney+ and eliminate the redundant app. Why maintain two platforms when you can force subscribers onto one?

For consumers, this means another adjustment, another interface to learn, another reminder that you don't actually own anything in the streaming era. That Hulu watchlist you've been curating for years? Gone. Your carefully organized profiles? Reset. The algorithm that finally understood your taste? Starting from scratch.

But hey, at least you'll get to watch The Handmaid's Tale next to The Mandalorian. Synergy!

The irony is exquisite. Streaming services spent the 2010s positioning themselves as the hip alternative to bloated cable packages. Netflix was the cool disruptor. Hulu was the prestige hub for next-day network TV. Disney+ was the family-friendly vault. Each had a distinct identity, a specific value proposition.

Now? It's all just content. Everything smashed together into massive platforms that charge $15+ per month and still show you ads unless you pay extra. We've recreated the cable bundle, except now it's more expensive and spread across eight different apps.

Disney isn't alone. Warner Bros. Discovery merged HBO Max and Discovery+ into Max, killing a beloved brand in the process. Paramount+ absorbed Showtime. Peacock exists for some reason. The streaming wars are over, and consolidation won.

The problem is that consolidation kills diversity. When every platform is trying to be everything to everyone, nothing feels special. HBO Max was —prestige dramas, auteur-driven limited series, the kind of content you couldn't find anywhere else. Now it's buried alongside and .