[calcifer]

> Users get reduced data consumption, potentially higher quality selection if the bandwidth now allows for a higher resolution to be streamed

They also get increased power usage, lesser battery life, higher energy bills, and potentially earlier device failures.

> Better codecs are an overall win for everyone involved.

Right.

[whatevaa]

If you experience early failure your device is badly engineered.

Mobile/power constrained devices don't use software decoding, that just a path to miserable experience. Hardware decoding is basically required.

Meanwhile my desktop can SW decode 4k youtube with 3% reported cpu usage.

[testdelacc1]

> power usage, lesser battery life, higher energy bills

I like how you padded this list by repeating the same thing thrice. Like, increased power usage is obviously going to lead to higher energy bills.

And it’s especially weird because it’s not true? The current SOTA codec AV1 is at a sweet spot for both compression and energy demand (https://arxiv.org/html/2402.09001v1). Consumers are not worse off!

[badpun]

Not to mention making your device obsolete. My 12 year old laptop already can't decode some of the videos on Pirate Bay in real time, because the codec is too demanding.

[bee_rider]

Of course, we’re living in the future where Moore’s law has seriously slowed down. But, as a product of the 90’s this is a kind wild thing to see. I can’t imagine in the year 2000 being disappointed content wouldn’t play on a 386 or something.

But, I mean, your expectation is not that unreasonable, computers were quite good by 2013. It is just an eye-opening framing.