Twitch to shut down in Korea over 'prohibitively expensive' network fees | TechCrunch
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Twitch, the popular video streaming service, plans to shut down its business in South Korea on February 27 after finding that operating in one of the Twitch plans to shut down its business in South Korea after network costs became "prohibitively expensive" in the leading esports market.

Twitch to shut down in Korea over ‘prohibitively expensive’ network fees::Twitch, the popular video streaming service, plans to shut down its business in South Korea on February 27 after finding that operating in one of the Twitch plans to shut down its business in South Korea after network costs became “prohibitively expensive” in the leading esports market.

  • LWD@lemm.eeEnglish
    151·
    11 months ago

    Is this a case of genuinely unreasonable usage fees, or are big companies just upset that they weren’t able to cut special deals with providers?

    South Korea has a reputation with the government playing favorites with various companies including Samsung, so I imagine this could swing either way.

    • ericswpark@lemmy.mlEnglish
      25·
      11 months ago

      IIRC the Korean ISPs wanted websites that incur a lot of bandwidth, like Netflix and Twitch, to pay a “usage fee” for all the strain they were causing on the network. Which is absolutely ridiculous – they basically want more money while still charging customers subscribed for Internet.

      Twitch did the right thing here in not paying. I think they also limited streams to 720p in Korea and there was a lot of backlash about that as well, but apparently nobody was bothered enough to kick up a storm about it to the ISPs. Which is sad, because you’re getting a subpar experience with the Internet line you paid good money for, all because of the greed of ISPs.

      Sadly Korea only has like three ISPs anywhere to get Internet service, so you either go with their shots or get no Internet.

      • LWD@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        Interesting. By comparison, I know the US Postal service picks up a lot of slack for Amazon (subsidizing their most expensive postal arrangements) and in the United States there’s basically only two ISPs in most areas… I’m surprised that Amazon is somehow the moral one in this situation

        • TurnItOff_OnAgain@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          11 months ago

          Only one high speed isp in my area. Shoot, I’ve lived in various places up and down the mid Atlantic and after dial up fizzled Comcast was always the only decent game around. I could do LTE now, but its still not as good as Comcast. 250mbps down, 10 up for $90/mo

          • LWD@lemm.eeEnglish
            1·
            11 months ago

            Yeah, there’s basically two ISPs but they retain regional monopolies, making it practically one ISP for you and plenty of others…

            South Korea is sounding really nice right about now, lol

      • miseducator@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        While the ISPs are being greedy, because the major three compete against each other, internet is cheap. I pay around 25usd/month for giga and basic cable in Seoul.