This is what happens when there is no net neutrality.
Online services get extorted by ISPs to reach the subscribers who are already paying the ISP.
In countries with network neutrality, the ISP cannot demand additional fees to deliver the content requested by a subscriber.
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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.
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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
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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.
Samsung is South Korea , literally they are the biggest and have the most influence on the country.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Twitch plans to shut down its business in South Korea on February 27, it said, after finding that operating in one of the world’s largest esports markets is “prohibitively expensive.”
In a blog post, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy said the firm undertook a “significant effort” to reduce the network costs to operate in Korea, but ultimately the fees to operate in Korea was still 10 times more expensive than in most other countries.
While we have lowered costs from these efforts, our network fees in Korea are still 10 times more expensive than in most other countries.”
The Amazon-owned streaming service said it has been operating in Korea at a “significant loss,” and there was “no pathway forward” to run the business sustainably in the country.
It’s unclear why network fees is so expensive in South Korea, though Clancy might be alluding to the recent controversial deliberation in the country to require tech companies to pay for network costs.
Korea has always and will continue to play a special role in the international esports community and we are incredibly grateful for the communities they built on Twitch,” wrote Clancy.
The original article contains 242 words, the summary contains 189 words. Saved 22%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
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