Want to Share Hulu With Twice as Many People? Disney Has Your Back

Publish date: 2024-08-10

Key Takeaways

Disney Bundle subscribers can now stream Hulu content in the Disney+ app. One interesting side effect of this "combined app experience" is that you can effectively share Hulu with 12 people—twice the normal number.

This fun little workaround requires a Disney Bundle subscription. Of course, there's a bit of irony here, as Disney is preparing an account-sharing crackdown à la Netflix.

Thank You, Hulu on Disney+

Hulu originally launched in 2007 and is only available in two countries—the U.S. and Japan. So, instead of dumping resources into the ancient Hulu app, Disney hopes to move everything over to the Disney+ platform.

We're still not sure how this will play out. Will Disney continue offering a standalone Hulu app, or will all customers (including those who only subscribe to Hulu) be pushed to Disney+? In any case, the combined app experience launched for Disney Bundle subscribers earlier this year. Disney+ now contains most of Hulu's content, minus add-ons and live programming.

The Disney+ app is far more polished than the old Hulu app and offers some unique features, such as Dolby Atmos audio. But there's a glaring flaw in the "Hulu on Disney+ experience;" user profiles on Hulu aren't synced with Disney+. Some people may see this as a slight annoyance, but I see it as a gift.

Try seeing things my way. Both the Hulu and Disney+ apps support up to six additional user profiles. So, sharing Hulu with 12 friends is a piece of cake—half of them can use your Hulu login while the other half uses your Disney+ login.

Yeah, Hulu and Disney+ enforce a "screen sharing" limit. You can only stream these services to a certain number of devices at a time. But Disney hasn't bridged this limitation across the Hulu and Disney+ apps. You can max out the number of simultaneous streams on Hulu without affecting your Disney+ account, and vice versa.

Note that the aging Hulu app doesn't work properly on some streaming devices (particularly Android TV devices). And, of course, friends who log into your Disney+ account can stream a lot more content than those who log into Hulu. You may want to reserve your Disney+ login for your favorite family and friends and leave your Hulu login for the other people in your life.

This Workaround Will Stop Working By September

After months of hinting at an account-sharing crackdown, Disney is finally going through with it. The Disney+ and Hulu apps will begin asking users to identify their households this June. If you give your login details to someone who lives outside of your home, they won't be able to access your Disney+ or Hulu accounts.

Disney CEO Bob Iger says that this crackdown will be finalized by September. If you're lucky, your account will remain unaffected until then. The Netflix password-sharing crackdown took a very long time, but Disney expects to perform the same job in a matter of months (which may or may not be realistic).

So, the little account-sharing trick we've described in this article will quickly become obsolete. On the bright side, there's a non-zero chance that the Disney+ and Hulu apps will use two different household setup processes. You could, theoretically, allow a friend to commandeer your Hulu account by setting it up at their home. But I doubt that things will work out this way.

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