Comment Re: If this data is as valuable as they claim (Score 1) 43
They want to show something
And their viewers presumably want to view it.
I think there are a few reasons we have landed on the model we have.
1. People don't like unbounded liabilities. This is scary enough with regular web-hosting but given the huge size of video files, hosting them on your own website was frankly terrifying.
2. Most people (both viewers and creators) don't' want to pay actual cash for messing about online, so ad-driven services rule the roost, it's much easier to do that if you have scale.
3. Many of the major platforms ran at a loss for years and may still be doing so, at least in terms of direct profits. Afaict both Twitch and Youtube post revenue figures but not profit figures.