Sunday, March 29, 2015

Internet traffic all used up?

Looking deeper into the subject discussed in class around netflix usage, it appears of late netflix continues to dominate 35% of all internet traffic reflecting a massive usage of the internet's infrastructure for a single company. the question around whether this is fair is closely aligned to issues of free speech and 'equitable' use of the internet - the question that appears to come up from this all is there a way to make Netflix accountable for all this demand on the system - and are users implicitly paying for this infrastructure and the right to use their internet connectivity when they pay their monthly internet charges already - arguably yes.

Shifting to bittorrent, it's notable to see how tides have shifted in recent years, as this appears to have been the primary source of video downloads as recently as 2008, dominating traffic upwards to the same level of netflix. in some senses, this is a cautious datapoint for those who believe netflix or any tech company can continue to singularly dominate internet traffic.

notably, in asia, where netflix doesnt have the same popularity, bittorrent remains the focus of internet traffic accounting for about a third. arguably it's all for the same usage - whether legal or illegal. this begs the question of how content providers can evolve their business model to capture this market share. it's not just north america that is likely willing to pay a nominal fee for a premium streaming service i would argue. i'm curious to see what comes next.

http://variety.com/2014/digital/news/netflix-streaming-eats-up-35-of-downstream-internet-bandwidth-usage-study-1201360914/

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