this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2024
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I believe it works like Bittorent (and things like Windows updates) where there is a swarm of peers that simultaneously upload and download to/from eachother, so the original creator, or any single user, doesn't necessarily need much bandwidth. There are some disadvantages to this, but it is manageable, and works for many other things. If it actually became a thing, I imagine sponsored/patreon-funded creators would pay someone to seed their videos to ensure availability and quality. Fans would probably help too. Technically, it's a viable option.
But yeah, with how walled-garden the Internet has become, it probably won't become popular without massive amounts of marketing and doing things like signing exclusivity deals with popular creators, which needs a lot of money.
Thats still going to get up petabytes of bandwidth at scale, and it will be sobs like you eating the cost of it. Which is why it'll never work.
Bandwidth is cheaper the bigger in bulk you buy it, which is pretty much the only reason youtube of today is viable at all.. All your peer2peer idea does is the same thing that every business in America does... Socialize the costs and privatize the profits.
It has been a long time since i've heard someone go crazy on the whole "p2p can fix anything/everything" spiel though. Its long since been overtaken by the whole "blockchain can fix anything/everything" spiel, so it was quite nostalgic hearing it again.
How does torrentijg work, then?
Not at all, if you are trying to serve a file to millions, if not billions, of simultaneous user downloads.
Thanks :) I've always been extremely pro-decentralization (that does not use blockchains to "solve" byzantine fault tolerance and sybil vulnerabilities). I'm fine with things being somewhat less efficient if they're decentralized, and fine with creators and fans eating the costs about things they're passionate about (though it would probably turn semi-decentralized with companies offering seeding/content-delivery services at low cost). The rise of symmetric home fiber connections further increases viability. But, I agree that it likely will never become mainstream.
everyone speaks boldly until they get a ISP bill for thousands, if not tens of thousands, of their local exchange equivalent of dollars.