Ask HN: How do free (illegitimate) streaming apps cover running costs?

3 pointsposted 7 months ago
by BuildTheRobots

Item id: 44541086

5 Comments

cranberryturkey

7 months ago

the free ones i've seen are plastard with ads.

BuildTheRobots

7 months ago

To be fair, I've not actually played much with the VoD ones other than flick through the libraries and see if a couple of streams play. There's every chance they do break playback to throw adverts at you, I honestly don't know.

The live-tv streaming apps I've seen didn't seem to break for adverts, but I could be wrong. I don't have a box at home to play with or test so it's all passive observation.

Even so, does advertising revenue actually work out profitable after running costs?

cranberryturkey

7 months ago

from my experience usually the videos play fine after you get around the plethora of ads that are covering the play button etc.

BuildTheRobots

7 months ago

After speaking to one of my friends with a box, he insists there aren't adverts...

Seriously though, this is a somewhat large CDN - how the heck is it financed?

cavisne

7 months ago

A lot of these apps are peer to peer so they aren’t paying for storage or bandwidth.