IIRC, South Korea charges an import tax for foreign media. It’s part of why Korea has become a sort of media powerhouse, with K-pop, K-dramas, K-comics, etc… Those things are much cheaper in SK because they’re all local and aren’t being charged that extra tax. So they’re naturally very popular in SK because they’re much cheaper. Sort of a positive feedback loop where the media is cheaper so people consume more of it, which makes the media popular enough to survive on its own outside of Korea as well.
Comment on Twitch Will Shut Down Its Streaming Platform in South Korea
Paradachshund@lemmy.today 6 months ago
Does anyone know why it’s so expensive there?
PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 6 months ago
roguetrick@kbin.social 6 months ago
It's not about media, it's about traffic period. It's regulatory capture and subsequent collusion by Korean ISPs. Prohibitively expensive to run a streaming service like that even if you have local datacenters to reduce international transit fees (because you still have to connect to the local ISPs who will still charge you). https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/08/17/afterword-korea-s-challenge-to-standard-internet-interconnection-model-pub-85166
JohnWorks@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
It’s interesting that it’s still classified as foreign media even if the streamers could be local. Wonder if there’ll be a Korean twitch competitor that comes out of this.
pleb_maximus@feddit.de 6 months ago
There is AfreecaTV. I don’t think Twitch was a big competitor to them locally in the first place. At least from the little I know about it, so take that with an extra train of salt.
roguetrick@kbin.social 6 months ago
Supposedly that service is P2P, so that's how they operate without the fees.
Mac@mander.xyz 6 months ago
SPNP
Sabin10@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Lack of net neutrality is a huge part of it. Korean ISPs bill sites like twitch for the data they use.
p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
This is good ammo for the fight for Net Neutrality, honestly.