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It is a ponzi scheme right now. As long as cost of storage is falling exponentially, they can afford to keep the old stuff.
by TrainedMonkey 7y ago
It is a ponzi scheme right now. As long as cost of storage is falling exponentially, they can afford to keep the old stuff.
- GuB-42 7y agoThat the cost of storage is falling exponentially certainly helps but it isn't necessary if we want to keep the old stuff. In fact most of the exponential increase in storage space is used to cover the even more exponential increase in video file size. But there is a limit on how big video can get. Our perception is limited and passed a certain point, we won't notice the improvement. Audio has been "perfect" for quite a while now, and with 4k video, we are getting there too. There is also a limit on the amount of content users can produce before people do nothing but film themselves. We may find ourselves running out of stuff to store before we need to delete the old stuff.
- TrainedMonkey 7y agoYou are thinking only about quality of video increases. I agree that is essentially finite if we ignore upcoming technologies such as 360 video and eventually VR ready video (fully 3d, any perspective). My argument was primarily based on the number of videos uploaded (see https://tubularinsights.com/hours-minute-uploaded-youtube/ https://tubularinsights.com/hours-minute-uploaded-youtube/). Looking at the area under the curve, supporting the historic videos is a fraction of what it takes to store the most recent ones. I am arguing as long as the youtube continues to be able to support to store the recent videos, storing the historic ones is not that much more expensive. edit: also, running out of stuff to store is not going to be a thing ever. Amount of cameras in the world is increasing and people will keep shooting more videos.