i'll write a post about this that's more in depth, but the fact of the matter is: content is no longer linear when it comes to the internet. If 2 million people are going to watch heroes it certainly won't be at the same time. it will be at their leisure, so the whole technical capabilities argument doesn't hold up.<p>the stuff that is livestreamed is a different breed of content. think more along the lines of interactive sessions on ustream and jtv. they haven't hit a 2mil simultaneous stream. the engagement for each person is much higher on those sites anyway.
All it will take stream massively-watched video at orders of magnitude less cost than either airwave or cable broadcast is TCP multicast. Granted there are some barriers there, but it's fundamentally more efficient than any other broadcast method. It just hasn't been worth it yet because for those few events we've already had long-existing broadcast TV networks.<p>Hell, you could even do it purely at the application level with BitTorrent.<p>Cable is cheaper now because of sunk costs, but cable companies are much too fat to innovate at this point. They will do whatever they can to keep prices high and cling to their cash cow, while Internet bandwidth inevitably becomes cheaper fueled by thousands of disparate interests. Cartels may drag out the endgame, but eventually content producers will have no choice but to go where the eyeballs are.
He didn't really throw down any hard $$$ numbers in terms of costs. And didn't take into account the worlds demand for more bandwidth in general. As servers become more powerful and cheaper, and fiber becomes more plentiful what he said makes sense today, but will it tomorrow?
counter points:
1. most content isn't live-streamed.
2. content that is live-streamed fits very well to p2p , which is very cheap , and might even become embedded in flash.
3. the buffering issue holds some of the characteristics of disruptive technology:worse in viewing quality , but better in other dimensions - viewing options /price / experience. and as any disruptive tech , it's always improving.
4. regarding 3 internet video service providers : given a lot less customer lockup then cable companies , the competition between those 3 are better .
5, Alot depends on which advertising model(web vs cable) , will be able to offer better results.
" He asks the simple question of “how is it the Youtube , with all of google’s resources,. cant solve their buffering problem ? ” ....Now maybe Youtube will fix their buffering problem someday, along with the other issues that Dan addresses, but it wont be easy and it wont be quick."<p>Begging the question. There's no evidence of widespread YouTube 'buffering problems' in the article or the link.
Suggesting renting a time slot from cable/satellite providers as a solution ignores the shift in watching habits from being pushed content to pulling it.