Honest question: what’s your complaint? Worst case scenario everyone still gets to see their favorite show just in slightly lower quality. Best case scenario it preserves valuable bandwidth on a vital piece of infrastructure. Is the worst case really so bad?
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YouTube to Follow Netflix's Lead and Reduce Stream Quality in Europe to Ease Strain on Broadband Networks
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Honest question: what’s your complaint? Worst case scenario everyone still gets to see their favorite show just in slightly lower quality. Best case scenario it preserves valuable bandwidth on a vital piece of infrastructure. Is the worst case really so bad?
Dude used the made-up term “virtue signaling”, which is used by those pushing a certain political agenda. I took his post to be akin to those claiming the Coronavirus is a hoax. Others have interpreted it similarly. I can’t be more specific since this is not a PRSI thread.
This is one of the problems when people use made-up code words—they mean different things to different people. Maybe OP will clarify what his immorality signaling was supposed to mean.
I work from home in Switzerland - a country with probably one of the fastest internet in the world and rely on fast internet for my work but the speed has been very poor for the last week. I’m glad Netflix and YouTube lower their bitrate. High quality streaming is a luxury we can’t afford at the moment.
To anyone complaining here, I just need you to consider two things:
1 - Teleworking requires low latency.
2 - We still did not get to the peak of the crisis. Some countries are still not on full quarantine. Some companies are still setting up their home-working structures. This means that the pressure on the network is only likely to increase.
3 - Pressure is not only on the ISP side. There's also pressure on the companies' servers.
4 - It is not mandatory for the companies to lower stream quality. If they did it, it's because they have information about the pressure on their servers (for sure) and the network (likely).
1 - Teleworking requires low latency.
2 - We still did not get to the peak of the crisis. Some countries are still not on full quarantine. Some companies are still setting up their home-working structures. This means that the pressure on the network is only likely to increase.
3 - Pressure is not only on the ISP side. There's also pressure on the companies' servers.
4 - It is not mandatory for the companies to lower stream quality. If they did it, it's because they have information about the pressure on their servers (for sure) and the network (likely).
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Thank you for your anecdote! I surely hope it was hard numbers with proper analysis and not anectodes like yours that bent Netlfix and YouTube on this.
BTW I'm in the eastern EU and internet speed/latency in my house is as great as ever. Thanks for asking!
Since I suspect no one here knows the answer, can you contact YouTube with your question and report back to the group?
Do you honestly think that international companies are just gonna comply to this voluntary restriction just because? Do you think they do not have information on the pressure on networks and their servers?
Bingo. "Virtue signaling" is such a smarmy phrase. For those who are not familiar with the word "smarmy," it means what it sounds like.
That literally makes no sense, and isn't a counterpoint, /s or not.
If you use broadband in the UK and presumably much of Europe in many student-heavy areas, the speed drops (particularly on cable) at peak times when everyone's at home. Certain ISPs use the fact they don't traffic manage as a selling point. They'll have to if everyone's saturating it. Everyone is at home and binge watching. They don't need to be doing it in 4K, ffs.
ISPs know how their networks are performing. Perhaps at some point all video streaming will need to be de-prioritized or even blocked completely during the workday, but the current situation doesn’t seem to require those measures at the moment.
Hopefully slightly reducing the streaming bit rates will prevent more drastic measures from being necessary.
Is streaming that important to people? Isn’t there other things people can think of doing...
It's not "just because".
If they don't comply it will make them look bad and not "compassionate enough for the cause", even if there is no sound grounds for the complaint. I for one have not seen any real analysis done on the current strain on the systems. Have you?
It isn't uniquely the EU's fault that everyone didn't start testing for this when they could have. Here in the UK the early cases were returning holiday goers and tourists. I guess we should ban cruises, too?
Borders aren't the problem, inadequate testing and preparedness were, and each country has it's own flavour of missteps. Here in the UK we completely dropped the ball. Can't blame the EU for it.
It just occurred to me. If the EU or any government really cared about bandwidth for essential services it would immediately ban all pornography web sites. Porn is absolutely inessential. YouTube has useful information and is used in education. Netflix is more entertainment, but we need some entertainment. I would say pornography is not good, others may disagree. But the fact the EU doesn’t go after pornography websites when it supposedly has bandwidth issues tells you all you need to know about their lack of concern for the true good of its citizens.
The EU did not ban anything. Imposing bandwidth restrictions would be impossible because we have a thing here called net neutrality. So only companies can limit voluntarily. The EU issued a recommendation to all streaming services, and this includes porn sites.
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I have not. So why don't we hold until we have this analysis before jumping to conclusions about anything? This comment section went from "streaming quality" to debates on immigration, border control, and political institutions.
It seems that the companies are not the ones going on a scare bandwagon.
Go to Italy, you will easily find your empirical and verifiable proof.
Stop spreading misinformation, your immorality signaling will kill people.
View attachment 900078
Coronavirus Update (Live): 130,775,239 Cases and 2,849,547 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
Live statistics and coronavirus news tracking the number of confirmed cases, recovered patients, tests, and death toll due to the COVID-19 coronavirus from Wuhan, China. Coronavirus counter with new cases, deaths, and number of tests per 1 Million population. Historical data and info. Daily...www.worldometers.info
I was clearly referring to empirical and verifiable proof of Internet issues for them to take these actions. JFC.
What's happening around the world with Covid-19 is terrible.
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Exactly.
I'm only jumping to conclusions (not even conclusions, just concerns) because of my experience with how these things work when it comes to EU+technology+regulations, that's all.
Show me the numbers. Let's see the real data on available capacity and not what some politician says.
Politicians have a way of shaming companies into taking certain actions, and once one company takes action, others feel compelled to do so out of social pressure.
At least it'll barely affect us poor Apple TV users, since we're stuck in 1080p land with YouTube anyway, due to the pathetic behaviour of Apple and Google and video formats. Can't believe that years later, I STILL need to switch to a cheap ass TV OS or £20 stick, to watch YouTube in 4k or hdr, when Apple could have worked around this easily enough. Hope the new shared video formats come soon!
If you're talking defending against confirmed cases of a virus? Agreed. If you're talking about immigration? Different issue. We're all in this together. If anything this needs to teach everyone to be less isolationist and cooperate more cross-nationally.
I can't believe that someone still finds a way to bash Apple in a completely unrelated thread.