[Matt3o12_]

> massive expense of data transfer

Does anyone here know how video platforms like Twitch managed to get started considering how expensive cloud data transfer pricing is? The steam bandwidth is considerably higher then video bandwidth (twitch uses a bitrate at around 8000k while YouTube has 3414k for comparable 1080p60fps videos). They also cannot take advantage of edge delivery expect for very large streamers because viewers expect a latency of 3secs or lower to their favorite stream.

I am really curious if anyone here knows how they managed to get started? They probably couldn't take advantage of super low bandwidth prices until recently because they were too small but had very expensive requirements (a lot of streamers only streaming to a very limited amount of people with high quality while also having a few very very large streamers stream to a huge amount of viewers and all of that in real time).

> It makes me doubt the profitability of Twitch, although you can be sure they are breathing a sigh of relief today.

I think twitch is highly profitable these days. Streamers have a considerable amount of subscribers, who pay a monthly fee of $5 (or sometimes even more) and stay for long durations. Twitch takes a 30-50% cut (lower depending on how big the streamer is and if twitch likes the streamer). Even streamers who average less then 1,000 concurrent viewers sometimes have between 100-500 subs.

And they have also created bits, which is a virtual currency viewers can use to tip their favorite streamers and twitch takes a similar cut (and they only let you but it in bulk beforehand to make it less transparent on how much you actually spent on them, similar to many mobile games in-app purchase model). And they play ads before streams (and during streams if they streamer decides to play them for a small cut), they also heavily advertise amazon prime (twitch streams constantly say hey you can use amazon prime to subscribe to me for free), they have premium users and probably even more monetization techniques.

[Drew_]

I think you're just mistaking Twitch for a recent unicorn. Twitch grew completely organically from Justin.TV in the mid-late 00's and the demands for hosting something like Justin.TV we're far lower than they are for Twitch now.

Just to put it in context, game streaming was picking up steam on Justin.TV before Instagram even launched. The juggernaut that Twitch is now was just inevitable.

[piva00]

People weren't around or just don't remember Justin.TV, UStream and similar services.

As a former Counter-Strike 1.6 player in a decent level I do remember the transition from watching eSports on HLTV and other in-game broadcast solutions to watching on Justin.TV or UStream.

I think the major turning point was around 2011-2012 and my days of competitive gaming were way behind me at that point so being able to watch pros through a live videostream was quite exciting, now it's just a given but it's been brewing for the past 10-15 years.

[Dylan16807]

> Does anyone here know how video platforms like Twitch managed to get started considering how expensive cloud data transfer pricing is?

Don't use amazon, mostly.

If you're really small, there are lots of servers for rent that have gigabit+ connections at reasonable prices.

Once you're in the tens to hundreds of gigabits per second, you can get cheap connections in datacenters. If you were starting twitch today, you could get some $1500 10gig internet connections. Then one server can support 1500 viewers, with an average of 1000, and cost only about a fifth of a cent per viewer-hour for bandwidth. Not too hard to reach with an ad break, and a subscriber pays you much more than they cost.

Bandwidth gets more expensive as you go back in the years, but AWS has never been a good deal, and twitch had lower bitrates too.

[sillysaurusx]

If anyone wants 40MB/s unlimited bandwidth servers, use Hetzner. $35/mo. Best purchase I’ve made in recent times.

To underscore: the bandwidth is completely free.

[numlock86]

If you just need 12.5 MB/s (100 MBit/s) unlimited traffic and are from Germany there are options going as low as €4/mo. Of course you won't get much video streaming from that ... but that's the case with 40 MB/s, too.

[Mirioron]

>Does anyone here know how video platforms like Twitch managed to get started considering how expensive cloud data transfer pricing is?

A very high quality stream at the start of Twitch was 2500 kbps. Viewership numbers were much smaller. This meant that bandwidth costs were significantly lower.

Back then ad revenue was much higher per user. Ad block wasn't common and I'm pretty sure ads paid more. This essentially allowed Twitch (and YouTube) to grow to become big enough.

Streaming sites before Twitch/JustinTV were even lower video quality. Eg livestream. We're talking about 480p looking good in comparison. Even the audio quality on those was poor.

Twitch actually had a great competitor in own3d.tv, but they had a lot of trouble paying out to the streamers. That eventually sank them.

[detaro]

JustinTV also started on AWS and then moved out to their own, cheaper infrastructure when they grew. And then presumably back at some point.

[pratnala]

Adblock doesn't work on Twitch though

[Svenskunganka]

It does, if you use e.g uBlock Origin. Twitch is actively trying to circumvent adblockers but so far hasn't been able to topple the more advanced blockers, even though they released SureStream[1] almost 4 years ago which is supposed to "weave" the ad directly into the source stream.

In the announcement[2] they mentioned:

> We are well aware that many dedicated Twitch viewers use software that bypasses ads, and the rollout of this technology will reduce the efficacy of such software. As a company we are agnostic when it comes to the use of this software. You are free to use it, or not, as you see fit.

I suspect that either advertisers or streamers aren't using SureStream or that it's quite resource expensive to "weave" ads into the source stream so Twitch simply isn't using it when the cost of doing so is more than it generates in ad revenue.

[1]: https://twitchadvertising.tv/ad-products/surestream/

[2]: https://blog.twitch.tv/en/2016/11/02/introducing-sure-stream...

[Mirioron]

Works for me (or maybe steamers aren't running ads anymore?) But it certainly used to work for a long time.

[timClicks]

FWIW when Twitch started as justin.tv it was much, much poorer quality than 8000k.

[mcny]

> FWIW when Twitch started as justin.tv it was much, much poorer quality than 8000k.

Yup, to expand on that I had a chance to chat with someone at Justin.tv and they said a thirty second ad pays a lot more than the cost of serving video for an hour. iirc this was around 2009 or 2010?

Also, iirc even through 2014, my friends who played League of Legends (lol) used to watch stream on VLC instead of directly on the website on Twitch. The consensus was for lol, 720p60 was preferable to 1080p30.

I don't think Twitch got where it got because of technical prowess. If I had to guess, it was just lucky being first. It would be interesting to hear stories from the people at YouTube. Why did it take them so long to add live streaming?

[Merem]

Justin.tv offered pro accounts for preferred data transfers, as it would lag just watching a stream at 360p at best (not that they had quality options back in the day). I know I paid for it, just so that I could watch illegal cough Simpsons streams.

Justin.tv/Twitch.tv wasn't first though. Livestream and Ustream, for instance, were relevant before Justin.tv. It's just that they messed up along the way and people always migrated to the next service. When people did so from Ustream to Justin.tv, the latter never really did and as such, people never really left. However, they had a competitor in the form of own3d.tv for a good amount of time....but own3d.tv lost the holding-the-breath battle, as I don't think they really had financial backing unlike Twitch.tv then. If any larger company had paid attention back then (around 2012), the international streaming space might have looked different.

[radley]

Live streaming wasn't the issue, it was live gaming streaming. Everyone was blocking it because it ate up tons of bandwidth (and there were copyright concerns). Justin.tv was small, well connected, and knew the numbers well enough to know how to capitalize on it.

[waheoo]

You should recheck that assumption and watch some of their old tech talks. They made some good pivots and had to move quickly to scale with the growth they had.

[deadmutex]

Small nit: quality and bitrate aren't directly comparable. E.g. codec and decoders choice can make a huge difference. E.g. A lower bitrate av1 stream can be higher visual quality than higher bitrate x264 stream.

Where this matters is that sometimes consumers will automatically assume bitrate=quality (especially in audio), and then claim one audio service has better quality than other just because they use a higher bitrate.

[onetimeonly____]

FWIW, 3s latency wasn't a thing at all before amazon, and well into the acquisition

[kchoudhu]

Twitch is now Amazon.

Amazon doesn't charge its internal departments what it charges you.