From: Simon Lyall (no email)
Date: Mon Jan 08 2007 - 20:02:27 EST
On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, Gian Constantine wrote:
> I would also argue storage and distribution costs are not
> asymptotically zero with scale. Well designed SANs are not cheap.
> Well designed distribution systems are not cheap. While price does
> decrease when scaled upwards, the cost of such an operation remains
> hefty, and increases with additions to the offered content library
> and a swelling of demand for this content. I believe the graph
> becomes neither asymptotic, nor anywhere near zero.
Lets see what I can do using today's technology:
According to the itunes website they have over 3.5 million songs. Lets
call it 4 million. Assume a decent bit rate and make them average 10 MB
each. That's 40 TB which would cost me $6k per month to store on Amazon
S3. Lets assume we use Amazon EC3 to only allow torrents of the files to
be downloaded and we transfer each file twice per month. Total cost around
$20k per month or $250k per year. Add $10k to pay somebody to create the
interface and put up a few banner ads and it'll be self supporting.
That sort of setup could come out of petty cash for larger ISPs marketing
Departments.
Of course there are a few problems with the above business model (mostly
legal) but infrastructure costs are not one of them. Plug in your own
numbers for movies and tv shows but 40 TB for each will probably be enough.
-- Simon J. Lyall | Very Busy | Web: http://www.darkmere.gen.nz/ "To stay awake all night adds a day to your life" - Stilgar | eMT.
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