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Re:YouTube’s Bandwidth Bill Is Low by radu_floricica on Friday October 16, 2009 @07:15PM (#886357)
Come to think of it, large scale there could be a sort-of market in bandwith based on content. Between google and isp, who wants youtube to have bandwith more? You could say isp take data from youtube and sell it to the final customer. The only reason they historically get away with charging both the content provider and the content consumer is the balance of power: any single content provider is of little value to the isp, but the isp is of great value to that provider.

Now that google is a large enough force it could very well make money from offering bandwith, and isps will bid for it because not doing so would cost _them_ customers.

Re:YouTube’s Bandwidth Bill Is Low by Kaizyn on Friday October 16, 2009 @07:50PM (#886385)
The key here is that Google bought up enough dark fiber to make itself in effect an ISP. Therefore, it's a negotiation between equals more than it is a content provider and an ISP. The fact that Google can make its services slower for users of a particular ISP if they cause too much trouble probably pushes the balance of power in its favor.