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 6 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 6 months ago
cerement@slrpnk.net 6 months ago
more a matter of “don’t wanna” than “can’t”
glimse@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It says they operated at a loss in SK. If that’s true, I wouldn’t wanna, either.
CluckN@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I also didn’t know that South Korea charges extra for foreign content providers which is also pretty aggressive.
DarkThoughts@kbin.social 6 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.
slazer2au@lemmy.world 6 months ago
That is surprising forthcoming from them.
Desistance@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Couldn’t Koreans just VPN to another country?
Konraddo@lemmy.world 6 months ago
No need. Asian countries are not blocked from using Twitch. It’s just Twitch won’t have local business in Korea now.
roguetrick@kbin.social 6 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 6 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 6 months ago
[deleted]panchzila@lemmy.world 6 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 6 months ago
Does anyone know why it’s so expensive there?
Sabin10@lemmy.world 6 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 6 months ago
This is good ammo for the fight for Net Neutrality, honestly.
PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 6 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 6 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 6 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 6 months ago
SPNP