Well, look at it this way: at the time the intercontinental backbone was an absolute straw compared to the gigantic capacity that we have today. Within a few weeks of launching I took over a good chunk of that capacity and with the trend being what it was I would have saturated the backbone within another couple of months without even trying. This eventually led to relocating my company to Canada where we had access to a half decent connection to MAE-East and MAE-West through Front 151. It was either that or be seriously penalized.
At the time a European start-up getting the majority of its visitors from the US was not a common thing and that start-up being video related was unheard of entirely.