> It is easier than ever for them to get started because they can begin by piggybacking on one of the existing CDNs. Eventually they will build their own network of POPs
This increases centrality, as the point of failure is the parent CDN.
> This increases centrality, as the point of failure is the parent CDN.
Only for a while, as they are starting up
Example:
- AWS has 25 regions [0]
- AWS CloudFront has 225 POP regions [1]
Partnering with Equinix/etc. and other ISPs to establish more POPs is an expensive and time-consuming process. Unless the CDN has a good edge-close-to-cities presence and a high number of those, users will generally not see value in the CDN.
[0] https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/
[1] https://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/features/?nc=sn&loc=2&what...
I didn't claim that it was.
> Unless the CDN has a good edge-close-to-cities presence and a high number of those, users will generally not see value in the CDN.
A home truth is that most CDN users don't give a monkeys about per-city POPs. If you just had one POP per continent that would probably be sufficient to cut latency by ~75% for cache hits. Many real world CDNs have <50 POPs (eg CDN77, which has 33) and some have <25 (eg BunnyCDN sells a package with just 8 POPs). These businesses have already existed for some years and have a real customer bases.