Damn I didn’t know it was 10x the cost. Crazy how a company that size still can’t handle the fees.
Twitch Will Shut Down Its Streaming Platform in South Korea
Submitted 11 months ago by Goronmon@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
https://blog.twitch.tv/en/2023/12/05/an-update-on-twitch-in-korea/
Comments
CluckN@lemmy.world 11 months ago
cerement@slrpnk.net 11 months ago
more a matter of “don’t wanna” than “can’t”
glimse@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It says they operated at a loss in SK. If that’s true, I wouldn’t wanna, either.
CluckN@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I also didn’t know that South Korea charges extra for foreign content providers which is also pretty aggressive.
DarkThoughts@kbin.social 11 months 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.
CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 11 months ago
10x the cost of what tho? They just say “most other countries”, but tahts just spin and essentially meaningless without more data
slazer2au@lemmy.world 11 months ago
That is surprising forthcoming from them.
Desistance@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Couldn’t Koreans just VPN to another country?
Konraddo@lemmy.world 11 months ago
No need. Asian countries are not blocked from using Twitch. It’s just Twitch won’t have local business in Korea now.
mojo@lemm.ee 11 months ago
VPNs aren’t the solution to shitty laws, nor can you expect that to be a valid mass solution
sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz 11 months 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.
roguetrick@kbin.social 11 months ago
What's funny is Korean VPNs would be paying the fees to the ISPs instead, lol. ISPs still get their money.
redcalcium@lemmy.institute 11 months 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.
Tom_bishop@lemmy.world 11 months ago
[deleted]panchzila@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Are you trolling? Korea has a 97% literacy rate and is in the top 20 of best educated countries in the world.
Paradachshund@lemmy.today 11 months ago
Does anyone know why it’s so expensive there?
Sabin10@lemmy.world 11 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 11 months ago
This is good ammo for the fight for Net Neutrality, honestly.
PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 11 months 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.
roguetrick@kbin.social 11 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 11 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.
Mac@mander.xyz 11 months ago
SPNP