Higher Quality Video is (Rarer & Pricier)

It Started with the Pandemic

Once the pandemic hit, internet speeds around the glove slowed as people who were stuck inside went online more and clogged the networks, here are some highlights:

• In Hubei Province (China), mobile broadband speeds fell by more than half.

• In mid-February, when the virus hit Italy, Germany and Spain, internet speeds in those countries also began to deteriorate.

• Across the United States, the average time it took to download videos, emails and documents increased as broadband speeds declined. Median download speeds dropped 38 percent in San Jose, California (for example).

• To head off problems, European regulators like Mr. Breton have pushed streaming companies such as Netflix and YouTube to reduce the size of their video files so they don’t take up as much bandwidth.

• Some tech companies have responded to the call to ease internet traffic. YouTube said that it would reduce the quality of its videos from high (720p) to standard definition (360p) across the globe.

• Enrique Blanco, the chief technology officer at Telefónica, a Spanish telecommunications company said: "In just two days we grew (used) all the traffic we had planned for 2020".

• Last week, Mr. Breton, the European Union commissioner, discussed reducing the bitstreams of videos with chief executives of Netflix, Google & YouTube. The companies agreed, as did Amazon for Prime Video and Twitch.

• Netflix switched its high-definition video streams to lower quality to reduce the traffic they create there by 25 percent.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/business/coronavirus-internet-traffic-speed.html

Now in 2023 Users Are Continuously Hit with Paywalls and Price Hikes + Lower Quality Streaming

Zoom were the very first to downgrade 1080p conferences to 720p then to 360p as a standard (free accounts). 720p is no guaranteed, and 1080p is only activated (per discretion) by Zoom for certain accounts and individuals!

YouTube, the most visited (free) website, has seen a SURGE in ADS, then followed by a PREMIUM PAYWALL, then a WAR with ADBLOCKERS, and finally PREMIUM WITH ADS! It more than doubled its prices until reaching A$43 per MONTH for user-generated-content viewing WITH ADS!

Even HBO, Disney, Netflix, all PAID, now have ADS on their videos!

Not to mention, all this is for lower quality streaming. Higher quality means paying even more per month.

Source:

https://support.zoom.com/hc/en/article?id=zm_kb&sysparm_article=KB0066166

Let's imagine a world where BECTing (video reduction) can meet the never-ending demand by decreasing the size of video by 80%, while enabling a 500% increase in the output of the current resources (storage and bandwidth)! Such solutions are today's answers for tomorrow's problems.

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