I've thought about this as well, but bandwidth still seems too expensive to be viable.
I pay $10usd/TB. Assume (worst case) 1GB/hour because its a beach scene with waves or something and you've already got about 3/4 TB/month/user. You'd have to charge more than $7usd/user/month just to break even. That feels a little steep.
Even low speeds add up to big transfer if they're "always on".
I always thought cable TV providers ought to do this with their gazzllion extra channels that they never seem to be able to find enough programming for but the most impressive use along these lines I've seen them do yet is "24 hours of yule" at Christmas time where they broadcast a loop of a burning log for a day straight.
I'm reminded of the origin of Youtube - loads of video startups tried a similar thing, until the underlying tech became sufficient, and Youtube found the sweet spot of product-market fit (with enough capital to run at a loss for long enough).
These kind of video portals may not be quite viable yet, but it seems like they are right around the corner. I entirely share your sentiments about cable TV.
Something like this (like Youtube in it's time) seems inevitable - it's exciting to imagine the effect this sort of thing will have on the world.
By the time we talked it through and put it to rest, we had called it "placecasting" and envisioned ourselves as a connector that let people set up their own hd cams and make a few bucks providing views for basement-dwellers everywhere.
55" tvs that cost $1000 make it even more compelling now than then. I share your enthusiasm, just waiting for everyone to have "South Korea" bandwidth.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 26.8 ms ] threadI pay $10usd/TB. Assume (worst case) 1GB/hour because its a beach scene with waves or something and you've already got about 3/4 TB/month/user. You'd have to charge more than $7usd/user/month just to break even. That feels a little steep.
Even low speeds add up to big transfer if they're "always on".
I always thought cable TV providers ought to do this with their gazzllion extra channels that they never seem to be able to find enough programming for but the most impressive use along these lines I've seen them do yet is "24 hours of yule" at Christmas time where they broadcast a loop of a burning log for a day straight.
These kind of video portals may not be quite viable yet, but it seems like they are right around the corner. I entirely share your sentiments about cable TV.
Something like this (like Youtube in it's time) seems inevitable - it's exciting to imagine the effect this sort of thing will have on the world.
55" tvs that cost $1000 make it even more compelling now than then. I share your enthusiasm, just waiting for everyone to have "South Korea" bandwidth.