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Comment by rb2k_ | Hacker News Reader

> File-sharing through sites such as BitTorrent

Yeah, I don't think the know what BitTorrent is...

> Streaming video tends to take up less bandwidth, since people only download as much as they watch rather than downloading the whole thing only to stop in the middle.

How large is the percentage of people stopping in the middle? Also: How do the video bitrates from netflix/hulu compare to the pirated content?

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Rephrase middle as middle of season and it may make more sense. How many people downloaded every episode of a tv show then decided they didn't like it after watching only one episode? More generally, you can only stream as much as there are hours in a day. You can download a lot more.

> You can download a lot more.

Not to mention seedboxes running 24/7 at blazing speeds.

The real benefit of Netflix/Hulu is not so much a reduction in video bitrate, but that they run cache CDNs closer to the customers, so there is less traffic traversing long distances over the Internet.

Thus, less "Internet" traffic (but more last-mile traffic).

Would it be possible for ISP's to operate a proxy seed box (or network of boxes), that detects which torrents are popular, and and seeds them to customers? In theory these boxes, being much closer to the customer and having less bandwidth bottlenecks, would be the preferred source for bittorent clients.

I think they refer to people just downloading a few seasons at a time, only to watch half of it (or less), I know I've done that in the past (though I don't use torrents, but that's besides the case)

It also tends to be less data overall.

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