In yet further evidence that the company may as well change its motto to “Haters gonna hate,” Netflix is still eating up a huge chunk of total internet bandwidth. Variety reports that during peak periods the streaming service accounted for 36.5 percent of all downstream bandwidth in March; this is actually an increase from the last measurement six months ago, when it was at 34.5 percent, meaning Netflix’s primetime viewership is still increasing. It also means that the other streaming services need to stop being such haters.
This number is greater than the bandwidth percentage of YouTube, Amazon, and Hulu combined, by a fair margin. For comparison: YouTube’s traffic during the equivalent periods made up 15.6 percent of the total, Amazon Instant Video’s was 2 percent, and Hulu’s was 1.9 percent. Web browsing in its entirety during these hours was 6 percent, to give you some idea of how massive Netflix has become. Other streaming services, like HBO Go or Dish Network’s Sling TV, barely even make a dent, although during the season five premiere of Game Of Thrones HBO Go, along with HBO Now, accounted for 4.1 percent, which HBO totally uses as an excuse to try and hang out with Netflix, even though Netflix is like, ugh, whatever, HBO.
Also, in news that is severely rocking the lunch room right now, BitTorrent is not even cool any more. Whereas it used to walk down the halls like it owned the place with a 31 percent share of bandwidth usage in 2008, now it’s barely at 6.3 percent—still big, but, like, “king of the stoners who hang out under the bleachers” big.
Do you know if Netflix is planning to be at the diner later? No big deal, just wondering if we should be there. We want to know what it’s summer plans are, and if it likes this new outfit we got.