Rumor says $10 Hulu Plus fee will be chopped in half

The initial reaction to the $10-a-month Hulu Plus service—which lets you tap into a deeper well of network TV shows, as well as stream Hulu videos over iPads, iPhones and the PlayStation 3—was mixed, to put to it mildly.
Sure, $10 a month might sound reasonable to those using Hulu to cut the cord, but it wasn't music to the ears of those who are already shelling out a serious chunk of change each month for cable or satellite TV. And besides, even those viewers who have decided to pony up for Hulu Plus are still forced to watch those annoying, unskippable ads that are stitched into each of Hulu's streaming shows.
But what if the Hulu Plus subscription fees were a little cheaper—say, $5 a month instead of $10?
Hulu hasn't announced anything official yet, but All Things Digital's Peter Kafka (who, incidentally, was among the first to report that Hulu would start charging for content in the first place) claims that Hulu is mulling a price cut for Hulu Plus—possibly as much as half off, from $9.95 to $4.95.
Such a move would make Hulu Plus a lot more competitive with Netflix, which charges just $8.99 a month for full access to its streaming catalog of 20,000-plus TV shows and movies (although Netflix's TV selection is still playing catchup with Hulu, especially as far as newer episodes are concerned) plus a one-at-a-time DVD-by-mail rental.
For now, a $10 monthly Hulu Plus subscription gets you access to an archive of more than 2,000 episodes from 120 seasons of shows from the likes of ABC, Fox and NBC (still no CBS, though) on top of the more recent network TV episodes on Hulu.com that you can already watch for free.

Hulu Plus also lets you stream shows to your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad (over both 3G and Wi-Fi)--or to your HDTV via a PlayStation 3 (available now), an Xbox 360 (next year) or (in the coming weeks) set-top boxes like the Roku, TiVo and Sony's Netbox.
What a Hulu Plus membership doesn't give you, though, is an exemption from the commercial breaks that pepper Hulu's streaming TV shows and movies, an annoyance that's irked many a would-be Hulu Plus subscriber.
Hulu Plus is still in invite-only beta, and Hulu hasn't revealed how many users have signed up—although as Kafka notes, a 50 percent price cut would be a pretty good indication that interest hasn't been overwhelming.
But even at just $5 a month, would a Hulu Plus subscription be worth the cash?