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by GeneticGenesis 2689 days ago
Peer5 is actually a really interesting example of how the user experience can be improved using peer-to-peer, particularly in areas with less capable internet infrastructures - their technology _only_ kicks in if the user experience can be improved by using peer-to-peer, and it'll fallback to traditional CDNs if they can't improve the experience.

Despite this logic, they were capable of very impressive P2P offloads during the world cup. Their datasheet linked at the bottom of this blog post is worth a read for more details: https://blog.peer5.com/what-a-world-cup/ (email address needed)
1 comments
marcinzm 2688 days ago
>their technology _only_ kicks in if the user experience can be improved by using peer-to-peer

I'm curious on how well that works in practice.

I'd imagine there's more failures modes versus a regular CDN even after the initial decision of P2P or CDN. For example, you're downloading from another user who suddenly closes their app or whose network connection degrades. You can handle that but you'll need a larger buffer, on average, which increases latency.

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