Twitch Will Shut Down Its Streaming Platform in South Korea

Comments

• Paradachshund@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

  Does anyone know why it’s so expensive there?

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  • Sabin10@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    Lack of net neutrality is a huge part of it. Korean ISPs bill sites like twitch for the data they use.

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    • p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      This is good ammo for the fight for Net Neutrality, honestly.

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  • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    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.

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    • roguetrick@kbin.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ 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

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    • JohnWorks@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ 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.

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  • Mac@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    SPNP

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• CluckN@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

  Damn I didn’t know it was 10x the cost. Crazy how a company that size still can’t handle the fees.

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  • cerement@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    more a matter of “don’t wanna” than “can’t”

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    • glimse@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      It says they operated at a loss in SK. If that’s true, I wouldn’t wanna, either.

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    • CluckN@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      I also didn’t know that South Korea charges extra for foreign content providers which is also pretty aggressive.

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    • DarkThoughts@kbin.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      There's no "don't wanna" unless there's a "can't" due to not being able to make a profit. If they could they would. It's simple as that.

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  • CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    10x the cost of what tho? They just say “most other countries”, but tahts just spin and essentially meaningless without more data

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• slazer2au@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

  That is surprising forthcoming from them.

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• Desistance@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

  Couldn’t Koreans just VPN to another country?

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  • Konraddo@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    No need. Asian countries are not blocked from using Twitch. It’s just Twitch won’t have local business in Korea now.

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  • mojo@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    VPNs aren’t the solution to shitty laws, nor can you expect that to be a valid mass solution

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  • sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    This’ll probably happen, anyone wanting to watch or stream on Twitch will probably just go through the Japanese servers. But Twitch isn’t that popular in Korea anyways, most of the Koreans on the platform have large foreign audiences.

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  • roguetrick@kbin.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    What's funny is Korean VPNs would be paying the fees to the ISPs instead, lol. ISPs still get their money.

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    • redcalcium@lemmy.institute ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

      Which would be passed to their customers in the form of more expensive VPN price. Either way, the ISPs are the winner here, and I think someone mentioned that it’s practically impossible to create a new ISP due to regulatory capture so there will be no competition to challenge the oligopoly.

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• Tom_bishop@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

  [deleted]

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  • panchzila@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago

    Are you trolling? Korea has a 97% literacy rate and is in the top 20 of best educated countries in the world.

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