13 ms·

Justin.tv has shut down

396 points by abstractbill 12y ago

Joona 12y ago
Not really surprising, considering how outdated their site was (visually, at least). Edit: Users with accounts can migrate them to Twitch.TV here: http://link.twitch.tv/switchaccount http://link.twitch.tv/switchaccount
victorvation 12y ago
I guess this was inevitable after Twitch was acquired.
crazypyro 12y ago
Sounds like Twitch is slimming down after Google buy. Smart move. Google cares about the demographics of Twitch a lot more, I'd imagine.
- ihuman 12y ago
  Has the acquisition actually been announced yet? All I can find are articles that say it is "confirmed", but with no link to the announcement.
  - crazypyro 12y ago
    Yeah, I'm not sure. I actually switched the tense of my statement a few times with edits. There have been at least 2-3 leaks of the deal, FWIW.
  - Joona 12y ago
    No, it's purely rumors at this point.
- baddox 12y ago
  Did the companies Twitch and justin.tv have anything to do with each other, other than their shared ancestry?
  - crazypyro 12y ago
    Yes. Same parent company. The parent company was renamed to Twitch earlier this year. Twitch was a part of the justin.tv site, but it became popular enough to warrant its own site. Twitch.tv continued to boom while justin.tv stagnated much like the other streaming sites.
  - dublinben 12y ago
    They were essentially the same company. The parent company, Justin.tv rebranded as Twitch.tv earlier this year.
tdicola 12y ago
Kind of sucks access to old videos is gone. I remember watching a lot of Arab spring and occupy wall street streams live as they happened on the site. It's a shame to lose those videos and the interesting historical info in them.
- ejr 12y ago
  The Archive project has been busy getting these as quickly as possible. https://archive.org/details/justintv https://archive.org/details/justintv You may find a lot of those videos have been saved. I think there was a limit on which videos were actually saved as those with no views or only few were not selected.
  - bensw 12y ago
    Videos with more than 10 views were downloaded. In addition, many videos that people asked to be saved were downloaded.
    - tdicola 12y ago
      Awesome, thanks everyone who helped save the videos!
- joepie91_ 12y ago
  Fear not! https://archive.org/details/justintv https://archive.org/details/justintv ... however, it doesn't have absolutely everything. Justin.tv had so much data that even the Internet Archive and Archive Team had issues coping with it in such a short term. EDIT: Ah damnit, ejr was faster.
  - voltagex_ 12y ago
    Actually it was a matter of it being a silly amount of terabytes once you get to videos with <9 views. https://twitter.com/textfiles/status/476064989879349248 https://twitter.com/textfiles/status/476064989879349248
pessimizer 12y ago
You could see this coming when they gave everyone 7 days to back up their archives before they would be deleted. I'm sure most of their employable employees jumped ship since then.
- crazypyro 12y ago
  Why would they jump ship? Twitch.tv has been booming for the past couple years. If anything, they were just already moved to the twitch team. This has little to do with the viability of the company/site and more to do with getting rid of what is basically a generalized, predecessor version of their already highly successful specialized streaming site.
- ckdarby 12y ago
  Most stayed & most will get the benefit of the Google acquire =)
- Kiro 12y ago
  What are you talking about? Ever heard of Twitch?
aeturnum 12y ago
There's a lot of talk about how this is due to the google acquisition, but if you paid any attention to twitch / justin, this is the logical extension of the slow justin.tv sunset that has been going on for the past few years.
LandoCalrissian 12y ago
This had been in the cards for a long time now. Justin.tv was a huge liability since there were so many streams running pirated content. They were really smart in acknowledging the success of video game streaming the platform was having and focusing their efforts there. Honestly one of the better pivots I have seen. I think they are a really smart company, it will be interesting to see what happens post Google.
- calbear81 12y ago
  It makes perfect sense since they weren't really interesting to go after (no money ) and now with the potential for a huge acquisition they need to reduce exposure to lawsuits from content companies that see a gigantic treasure chest almost ready to pop open.
  - pkaye 12y ago
    Is there any money in twitch except through acquisition?
    - morgante 12y ago
      Advertising and partnering with big gaming contests can generate real revenue.
    - spinlock 12y ago
      Not really. The networking costs to stream to that many users is huge. Google has the infrastructure to change the cost structure but it only works with that kind of scale.
    - forrestthewoods 12y ago
      Top twitch streamers can pull 6 figures a year. I don't know what the bototm line for twitch looks like though.
    - harmegido 12y ago
      There's also subscriptions. People will pay $5 to subscribe to a channel for a month, half of which goes to Twitch (other half to the streamer).
guiomie 12y ago
I understand there was lots of pirated content on justin.tv, but I am surprised that focusing on streaming live video games is better in the long term then focusing on live content in general. I see the live content market with more possibilities ... live events, reality shows ...etc. I'm not an expert on the subject, can someone enlighten me?
- tomasien 12y ago
  Specialization is better than generalization for everyone but those who become hegemonic. If I come to Justin.tv I think "I don't know what I might find here (short of looking for pirated content)" and on Twitch I know "I'm going to see League of Legends". It would be a bigger win to be the "Youtube of live streaming" but a harder win. Twitch ended up with a MASSIVE specialized win in online gaming, and they went with what was working.
- jonnathanson 12y ago
  Live events and live content are legally tricky. First, because there are usually multiple rights-holders to the various content being performed, and second, because a rebroadcast of that content is often deemed to be a performance or exhibition in its own right. That means lawyers, and licenses, and paperwork, and the exchange of currency. Tangentially, there's also the issue of getting releases from people who appear in the video, and things of that nature. Live content is a huge opportunity. Content is often a tangled web.
- ChrisClark 12y ago
  I would think they want generic live content to go through Youtube now.
- zeidrich 12y ago
  Well, the easy answer is this supposed deal between google and twitch. Twitch as a service has special value because it aids in curation and discovery of video game streams. The fact that you can browse by game, browse by streamer, follow streamers, they all work in the video game streaming environment because of how people watch, and how streamers perform. Things like live events, reality shows, other live content is a bit trickier to categorize and manage than games. You can't have the same "titles list" as you do with video game streaming. All you can do is something like notifications to followers and subscriptions etc. The thing is, youtube does these things. If google is buying twitch, then youtube's live service and justin.tv do not serve distinct purposes, and youtube is probably a better platform (and better equipped to deal with piracy) than justin.tv was. You wouldn't want to just absorb twitch into youtube because twitch as a curator and means of discovery is better than youtube, specifically for video games. But justin.tv didn't serve that purpose well.
bwy 12y ago
"Twitch is site for gaming-related content only. " Just wanted to point out a typo in the copy.
- cheald 12y ago
  Not a typo, their had their Russian PR manager issue this release.
  - EpicEng 12y ago
    So it's not a typo because it was written by a Russian?
    - cheald 12y ago
      It's a joke; Russian doesn't have articles like English does. The omission of the article in the sentence that the OP pointed out makes it sound like it could have been spoken by a Russian character out of a Hollywood movie.
      - dudus 12y ago
        But now that you explained it's no longer funny.
      - eric_h 12y ago
        In my experience, all ESL Russians speak like Russian characters in Hollywood movies. I do find the dropped articles to be quite amusing.
programminggeek 12y ago
I would have never thought when Twitch first was a side project that it would become as big as it is. I don't know if it's luck, skill, or good timing, but it's really amazing what they achieved.
- mecheng123 12y ago
  All of those. Gaming has been steadily growing for a long time now and has reached a "major player" status, so the timing is good. They're obviously a very skilled group of people. And finally, great achievements require some luck.
troymc 12y ago
What are the major, general-purpose livestreaming options now? Ustream? Google Hangouts? What else?
- zanny 12y ago
  Self hosted RTP stream?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- pliu 12y ago
  I've never tried it myself, but I believe you can livestream on youtube. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2474026?hl=en https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2474026?hl=en
  - sysop073 12y ago
    When I tried it it worked pretty well, except the stream lagged really far behind. It was usually a couple minutes behind live for me
    - runevault 12y ago
      Twitch can be 30 seconds to a minute behind so these days having extensive difference between the broadcaster and viewers seems common, sadly.
- gwillen 12y ago
  At one time I had good luck with a streaming app called Bambuser. I switched from Ustream because the latter had issues (at the time) dealing with poor connectivity.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- arsey 12y ago
  YouNow and Tinychat are the ones left that I know about. BlogTV was big but closed down and was acquired by YouNow. I'm working on a general-purpose streaming site, but with a twist in how broadcasting works. Not quite enough for a 'Show HN' yet however.
lie07 12y ago
Im gonna miss "The Office" stream.
sogen 12y ago
...My cousins had just bought a membership...
- EpicEng 12y ago
  "I'm an active Pro Account User, will I be refunded? Yes. You should have already received an email communicating the cancellation and refund process."
  - sogen 12y ago
    great, thanks
hodgesmr 12y ago
"Your account is now closed, and you will be unable to access any settings or content"
- sockgrant 12y ago
  They announced the end of archiving of videos a few months ago. So there's nothing really to get off of your account.
MilnerRoute 12y ago
I feel nostalgic, in a weird way. With Google Glass coming into the world, it's nice to remember there was a time when filming your day required a pioneer spirit and a DIY rig. I remember this interview when Justin was just getting started... http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/06/06/a-conversation-with-justin-kan-of-justintv/ http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/06/06/a-conversation-with-j...
zhyder 12y ago
Seems abrupt. Would be nice to give users a couple of weeks or a month to download their content. Edit: never mind, looks like they gave plenty of notice.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- rjbwork 12y ago
  They made an announcement a while ago as I recall, I think it even made the front page of HN as well. EDIT: Yep, heres the link https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7826313 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7826313
evadoraz 12y ago
Would've been nice if he gave heads up at YC Hacks or something.
ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
I will miss endless repeats of the entire corpus of Stargate episodes. Really a great way to escape and get away for a while.
vanisher 12y ago
I used to visit justin.tv a lot in the early days, they used to have more interesting people broadcasting but the quality declined over the last 5 years. A lot of the more premium channels/brands broadcast on other sites. This is reflected in the traffic, just look at the decline from a peak in late 2009. Looking at this graph, it's no real surprise that they are shutting it down: https://www.quantcast.com/justin.tv#!traffic https://www.quantcast.com/justin.tv#!traffic (click all below the graph) They have done really well to develop the gaming side on twitch.
erikb 12y ago
This one was shocking to read. At first I thought the company is dying, but they basically switch the focus to twitch. I still remember when Justin's stream was all the rage. What a great time!
Zikes 12y ago
I recently signed up on twitch and started watching 1-2 hours of streams a day, usually whenever TotalBiscuit, Hafu, or Amaz are on in the evenings CST (which isn't terribly often). I also use Netflix exclusively as opposed to cable or satellite, and this is the unfortunate result: http://i.imgur.com/i7MKXWC.png http://i.imgur.com/i7MKXWC.png I used to think I'd have to torrent to hit typical consumer data caps, but that's no longer the case. I didn't do any torrenting whatsoever in July, but I still used over 300GB. Even if Verizon ever pull their head out of their rear in regards to peering, so long as data caps exist we'll still be artificially throttled in our internet usage.
- baby 12y ago
  you still have limited plans for internet in the US?
  - wlievens 12y ago
    Same where I live (Belgium), typical limit is around 150 gig.
    - TillE 12y ago
      Isn't Belgium notoriously bad when it comes to internet service? I remember hearing that a decade ago. 150GB is really low, unless it's some crazy cheap deal. Deutsche Telekom has been making noises about instituting a cap at some point in the coming years, but it's still no problem to get 50Mbit VDSL with no long-term contract and no cap through resellers like 1&1.
      - ekianjo 12y ago
        > Isn't Belgium notoriously bad when it comes to internet service? I remember hearing that a decade ago. 150GB is really low, unless it's some crazy cheap deal. Belgium is sooo backward for Internet. When I used to live there 7 years ago, prices were like twice the price of what you could get in France and my ADSL contract would only get 10 Gb per month, and I had to pay 5 euros to get 5 Gb more of data. The total ripoff. I'm so glad I left.
jedberg 12y ago
I remember in the first weeks of JTV when the crew would hold a weekly BBQ at their apartment, so that people would have something interesting to watch. It was fun to go up there and joke with Justin about his shenanigans for the week while watching Kyle build ever smaller portable rigs. I'm glad that that crazy idea ("I'm going to live stream my life and people will watch!") has turned into the best live streaming gaming site on the internet.
geuis 12y ago
This is sad nostalgia. It was 2006-2007 when I was in the process if moving from Miami to San Francisco. I remember finding out about Justin on a cnet interview (I think). He had a setup of some cameras in his hat. I remember quite fondly just watching him walk around the streets of SF and getting a real life view of what my future city looked like.
rapind 12y ago
I first heard about Justin.tv in an Amazon EC2 case study. They were one the the pioneers on the platform and laid out a blueprint on elastic scaling to handle their encoding. I found it very interesting and inspirational. The idea of lifecasting had been around for a while though I think. Josh Harris comes to mind, but maybe even earlier?
teddyh 12y ago
DNA Lounge used Justin.tv. JWZ’s reaction here: http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2014/08/05.html http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2014/08/05.html
cazer 12y ago
End of an era
ashmud 12y ago
Removed from TWiT: * Episode with mention: http://twit.tv/show/tech-news-2night/144 http://twit.tv/show/tech-news-2night/144 * Wiki history: http://wiki.twit.tv/w/index.php?title=Stream_URLs&diff=prev&oldid=59714 http://wiki.twit.tv/w/index.php?title=Stream_URLs&diff=prev&...
mathattack 12y ago
Can I retrieve my videos? Unfortunately, videos on Justin.tv are no longer accessible for download. Video archiving and VODs were removed on June 15, 2014. Were people given advance notice on this?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- sesqu 12y ago
  Yes, one week's notice.

396 points by abstractbill 12y ago

Joona 12y ago

Not really surprising, considering how outdated their site was (visually, at least). Edit: Users with accounts can migrate them to Twitch.TV here: http://link.twitch.tv/switchaccount http://link.twitch.tv/switchaccount

victorvation 12y ago

I guess this was inevitable after Twitch was acquired.

crazypyro 12y ago

Sounds like Twitch is slimming down after Google buy. Smart move. Google cares about the demographics of Twitch a lot more, I'd imagine.

ihuman 12y ago
Has the acquisition actually been announced yet? All I can find are articles that say it is "confirmed", but with no link to the announcement.
- crazypyro 12y ago
  Yeah, I'm not sure. I actually switched the tense of my statement a few times with edits. There have been at least 2-3 leaks of the deal, FWIW.
- Joona 12y ago
  No, it's purely rumors at this point.
baddox 12y ago
Did the companies Twitch and justin.tv have anything to do with each other, other than their shared ancestry?
- crazypyro 12y ago
  Yes. Same parent company. The parent company was renamed to Twitch earlier this year. Twitch was a part of the justin.tv site, but it became popular enough to warrant its own site. Twitch.tv continued to boom while justin.tv stagnated much like the other streaming sites.
- dublinben 12y ago
  They were essentially the same company. The parent company, Justin.tv rebranded as Twitch.tv earlier this year.

tdicola 12y ago

Kind of sucks access to old videos is gone. I remember watching a lot of Arab spring and occupy wall street streams live as they happened on the site. It's a shame to lose those videos and the interesting historical info in them.

ejr 12y ago
The Archive project has been busy getting these as quickly as possible. https://archive.org/details/justintv https://archive.org/details/justintv You may find a lot of those videos have been saved. I think there was a limit on which videos were actually saved as those with no views or only few were not selected.
- bensw 12y ago
  Videos with more than 10 views were downloaded. In addition, many videos that people asked to be saved were downloaded.
  - tdicola 12y ago
    Awesome, thanks everyone who helped save the videos!
joepie91_ 12y ago
Fear not! https://archive.org/details/justintv https://archive.org/details/justintv ... however, it doesn't have absolutely everything. Justin.tv had so much data that even the Internet Archive and Archive Team had issues coping with it in such a short term. EDIT: Ah damnit, ejr was faster.
- voltagex_ 12y ago
  Actually it was a matter of it being a silly amount of terabytes once you get to videos with <9 views. https://twitter.com/textfiles/status/476064989879349248 https://twitter.com/textfiles/status/476064989879349248

pessimizer 12y ago

You could see this coming when they gave everyone 7 days to back up their archives before they would be deleted. I'm sure most of their employable employees jumped ship since then.

crazypyro 12y ago
Why would they jump ship? Twitch.tv has been booming for the past couple years. If anything, they were just already moved to the twitch team. This has little to do with the viability of the company/site and more to do with getting rid of what is basically a generalized, predecessor version of their already highly successful specialized streaming site.
ckdarby 12y ago
Most stayed & most will get the benefit of the Google acquire =)
Kiro 12y ago
What are you talking about? Ever heard of Twitch?

aeturnum 12y ago

There's a lot of talk about how this is due to the google acquisition, but if you paid any attention to twitch / justin, this is the logical extension of the slow justin.tv sunset that has been going on for the past few years.

LandoCalrissian 12y ago

This had been in the cards for a long time now. Justin.tv was a huge liability since there were so many streams running pirated content. They were really smart in acknowledging the success of video game streaming the platform was having and focusing their efforts there. Honestly one of the better pivots I have seen. I think they are a really smart company, it will be interesting to see what happens post Google.

calbear81 12y ago
It makes perfect sense since they weren't really interesting to go after (no money ) and now with the potential for a huge acquisition they need to reduce exposure to lawsuits from content companies that see a gigantic treasure chest almost ready to pop open.
- pkaye 12y ago
  Is there any money in twitch except through acquisition?
  - morgante 12y ago
    Advertising and partnering with big gaming contests can generate real revenue.
  - spinlock 12y ago
    Not really. The networking costs to stream to that many users is huge. Google has the infrastructure to change the cost structure but it only works with that kind of scale.
  - forrestthewoods 12y ago
    Top twitch streamers can pull 6 figures a year. I don't know what the bototm line for twitch looks like though.
  - harmegido 12y ago
    There's also subscriptions. People will pay $5 to subscribe to a channel for a month, half of which goes to Twitch (other half to the streamer).

guiomie 12y ago

I understand there was lots of pirated content on justin.tv, but I am surprised that focusing on streaming live video games is better in the long term then focusing on live content in general. I see the live content market with more possibilities ... live events, reality shows ...etc. I'm not an expert on the subject, can someone enlighten me?

tomasien 12y ago
Specialization is better than generalization for everyone but those who become hegemonic. If I come to Justin.tv I think "I don't know what I might find here (short of looking for pirated content)" and on Twitch I know "I'm going to see League of Legends". It would be a bigger win to be the "Youtube of live streaming" but a harder win. Twitch ended up with a MASSIVE specialized win in online gaming, and they went with what was working.
jonnathanson 12y ago
Live events and live content are legally tricky. First, because there are usually multiple rights-holders to the various content being performed, and second, because a rebroadcast of that content is often deemed to be a performance or exhibition in its own right. That means lawyers, and licenses, and paperwork, and the exchange of currency. Tangentially, there's also the issue of getting releases from people who appear in the video, and things of that nature. Live content is a huge opportunity. Content is often a tangled web.
ChrisClark 12y ago
I would think they want generic live content to go through Youtube now.
zeidrich 12y ago
Well, the easy answer is this supposed deal between google and twitch. Twitch as a service has special value because it aids in curation and discovery of video game streams. The fact that you can browse by game, browse by streamer, follow streamers, they all work in the video game streaming environment because of how people watch, and how streamers perform. Things like live events, reality shows, other live content is a bit trickier to categorize and manage than games. You can't have the same "titles list" as you do with video game streaming. All you can do is something like notifications to followers and subscriptions etc. The thing is, youtube does these things. If google is buying twitch, then youtube's live service and justin.tv do not serve distinct purposes, and youtube is probably a better platform (and better equipped to deal with piracy) than justin.tv was. You wouldn't want to just absorb twitch into youtube because twitch as a curator and means of discovery is better than youtube, specifically for video games. But justin.tv didn't serve that purpose well.

bwy 12y ago

"Twitch is site for gaming-related content only. " Just wanted to point out a typo in the copy.

cheald 12y ago
Not a typo, their had their Russian PR manager issue this release.
- EpicEng 12y ago
  So it's not a typo because it was written by a Russian?
  - cheald 12y ago
    It's a joke; Russian doesn't have articles like English does. The omission of the article in the sentence that the OP pointed out makes it sound like it could have been spoken by a Russian character out of a Hollywood movie.
    - dudus 12y ago
      But now that you explained it's no longer funny.
    - eric_h 12y ago
      In my experience, all ESL Russians speak like Russian characters in Hollywood movies. I do find the dropped articles to be quite amusing.

programminggeek 12y ago

I would have never thought when Twitch first was a side project that it would become as big as it is. I don't know if it's luck, skill, or good timing, but it's really amazing what they achieved.

mecheng123 12y ago
All of those. Gaming has been steadily growing for a long time now and has reached a "major player" status, so the timing is good. They're obviously a very skilled group of people. And finally, great achievements require some luck.

troymc 12y ago

What are the major, general-purpose livestreaming options now? Ustream? Google Hangouts? What else?

zanny 12y ago
Self hosted RTP stream?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
pliu 12y ago
I've never tried it myself, but I believe you can livestream on youtube. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2474026?hl=en https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2474026?hl=en
- sysop073 12y ago
  When I tried it it worked pretty well, except the stream lagged really far behind. It was usually a couple minutes behind live for me
  - runevault 12y ago
    Twitch can be 30 seconds to a minute behind so these days having extensive difference between the broadcaster and viewers seems common, sadly.
gwillen 12y ago
At one time I had good luck with a streaming app called Bambuser. I switched from Ustream because the latter had issues (at the time) dealing with poor connectivity.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
arsey 12y ago
YouNow and Tinychat are the ones left that I know about. BlogTV was big but closed down and was acquired by YouNow. I'm working on a general-purpose streaming site, but with a twist in how broadcasting works. Not quite enough for a 'Show HN' yet however.

lie07 12y ago

Im gonna miss "The Office" stream.

sogen 12y ago

...My cousins had just bought a membership...

EpicEng 12y ago
"I'm an active Pro Account User, will I be refunded? Yes. You should have already received an email communicating the cancellation and refund process."
- sogen 12y ago
  great, thanks

hodgesmr 12y ago

"Your account is now closed, and you will be unable to access any settings or content"

sockgrant 12y ago
They announced the end of archiving of videos a few months ago. So there's nothing really to get off of your account.

MilnerRoute 12y ago

I feel nostalgic, in a weird way. With Google Glass coming into the world, it's nice to remember there was a time when filming your day required a pioneer spirit and a DIY rig. I remember this interview when Justin was just getting started... http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/06/06/a-conversation-with-justin-kan-of-justintv/ http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/06/06/a-conversation-with-j...

zhyder 12y ago

Seems abrupt. Would be nice to give users a couple of weeks or a month to download their content. Edit: never mind, looks like they gave plenty of notice.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
rjbwork 12y ago
They made an announcement a while ago as I recall, I think it even made the front page of HN as well. EDIT: Yep, heres the link https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7826313 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7826313

evadoraz 12y ago

Would've been nice if he gave heads up at YC Hacks or something.

ZanyProgrammer 12y ago

I will miss endless repeats of the entire corpus of Stargate episodes. Really a great way to escape and get away for a while.

vanisher 12y ago

I used to visit justin.tv a lot in the early days, they used to have more interesting people broadcasting but the quality declined over the last 5 years. A lot of the more premium channels/brands broadcast on other sites. This is reflected in the traffic, just look at the decline from a peak in late 2009. Looking at this graph, it's no real surprise that they are shutting it down: https://www.quantcast.com/justin.tv#!traffic https://www.quantcast.com/justin.tv#!traffic (click all below the graph) They have done really well to develop the gaming side on twitch.

erikb 12y ago

This one was shocking to read. At first I thought the company is dying, but they basically switch the focus to twitch. I still remember when Justin's stream was all the rage. What a great time!

Zikes 12y ago

I recently signed up on twitch and started watching 1-2 hours of streams a day, usually whenever TotalBiscuit, Hafu, or Amaz are on in the evenings CST (which isn't terribly often). I also use Netflix exclusively as opposed to cable or satellite, and this is the unfortunate result: http://i.imgur.com/i7MKXWC.png http://i.imgur.com/i7MKXWC.png I used to think I'd have to torrent to hit typical consumer data caps, but that's no longer the case. I didn't do any torrenting whatsoever in July, but I still used over 300GB. Even if Verizon ever pull their head out of their rear in regards to peering, so long as data caps exist we'll still be artificially throttled in our internet usage.

baby 12y ago
you still have limited plans for internet in the US?
- wlievens 12y ago
  Same where I live (Belgium), typical limit is around 150 gig.
  - TillE 12y ago
    Isn't Belgium notoriously bad when it comes to internet service? I remember hearing that a decade ago. 150GB is really low, unless it's some crazy cheap deal. Deutsche Telekom has been making noises about instituting a cap at some point in the coming years, but it's still no problem to get 50Mbit VDSL with no long-term contract and no cap through resellers like 1&1.
    - ekianjo 12y ago
      > Isn't Belgium notoriously bad when it comes to internet service? I remember hearing that a decade ago. 150GB is really low, unless it's some crazy cheap deal. Belgium is sooo backward for Internet. When I used to live there 7 years ago, prices were like twice the price of what you could get in France and my ADSL contract would only get 10 Gb per month, and I had to pay 5 euros to get 5 Gb more of data. The total ripoff. I'm so glad I left.

jedberg 12y ago

I remember in the first weeks of JTV when the crew would hold a weekly BBQ at their apartment, so that people would have something interesting to watch. It was fun to go up there and joke with Justin about his shenanigans for the week while watching Kyle build ever smaller portable rigs. I'm glad that that crazy idea ("I'm going to live stream my life and people will watch!") has turned into the best live streaming gaming site on the internet.

geuis 12y ago

This is sad nostalgia. It was 2006-2007 when I was in the process if moving from Miami to San Francisco. I remember finding out about Justin on a cnet interview (I think). He had a setup of some cameras in his hat. I remember quite fondly just watching him walk around the streets of SF and getting a real life view of what my future city looked like.

rapind 12y ago

I first heard about Justin.tv in an Amazon EC2 case study. They were one the the pioneers on the platform and laid out a blueprint on elastic scaling to handle their encoding. I found it very interesting and inspirational. The idea of lifecasting had been around for a while though I think. Josh Harris comes to mind, but maybe even earlier?

teddyh 12y ago

DNA Lounge used Justin.tv. JWZ’s reaction here: http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2014/08/05.html http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2014/08/05.html

cazer 12y ago

End of an era

ashmud 12y ago

Removed from TWiT: * Episode with mention: http://twit.tv/show/tech-news-2night/144 http://twit.tv/show/tech-news-2night/144 * Wiki history: http://wiki.twit.tv/w/index.php?title=Stream_URLs&diff=prev&oldid=59714 http://wiki.twit.tv/w/index.php?title=Stream_URLs&diff=prev&...

mathattack 12y ago

Can I retrieve my videos? Unfortunately, videos on Justin.tv are no longer accessible for download. Video archiving and VODs were removed on June 15, 2014. Were people given advance notice on this?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
sesqu 12y ago
Yes, one week's notice.