Comments on: Entertaining Libertarian Voice http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2007/02/entertaining_li.html Dispatches from a Small Business Sun, 12 Feb 2012 09:39:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Matt http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2007/02/entertaining_li.html/comment-page-1#comment-4866 Matt Fri, 02 Mar 2007 08:05:27 +0000 http://coyote-blog.com/wordpress/2007/02/entertaining_li.html#comment-4866 <p>No, that's not the problem. If that were the only problem, then all you'd need to find would be a few 20-something guys willing to move to Bermuda for the rest of their lives. Like that'd be hard.</p> <p>No, the PROBLEM is that youtube and google video and sites like them are only viable because bandwidth is cheap. And it's going to stay cheap for a very long time...as long as one is operating in a place with lots of spare capacity. But the entire global supply of places with lots of spare bandwidth capacity is consumed by countries at least as restrictive and/or litigious as the United States. If you start a business that involves saying or doing things you'd get in trouble for saying or doing in the US, then wherever you host the business, you'll pay for internet connectivity at the prices that prevailed here in the US in 1991...if you're lucky.</p> <p>If you want to host your own private data offshore, there are already companies you can do that with. If you want to open a relatively low-traffic business on offshore servers, some of them will also enable you to do that. But if you're going to offer real-time streaming video to the world, you'd better be able to turn used kleenex into gold bricks in your basement, because even if Bill Gates sued Wal-Mart into bankruptcy, there still wouldn't be a big enough pile of money to cover the losses for more than a couple of years.</p> No, that’s not the problem. If that were the only problem, then all you’d need to find would be a few 20-something guys willing to move to Bermuda for the rest of their lives. Like that’d be hard.

No, the PROBLEM is that youtube and google video and sites like them are only viable because bandwidth is cheap. And it’s going to stay cheap for a very long time…as long as one is operating in a place with lots of spare capacity. But the entire global supply of places with lots of spare bandwidth capacity is consumed by countries at least as restrictive and/or litigious as the United States. If you start a business that involves saying or doing things you’d get in trouble for saying or doing in the US, then wherever you host the business, you’ll pay for internet connectivity at the prices that prevailed here in the US in 1991…if you’re lucky.

If you want to host your own private data offshore, there are already companies you can do that with. If you want to open a relatively low-traffic business on offshore servers, some of them will also enable you to do that. But if you’re going to offer real-time streaming video to the world, you’d better be able to turn used kleenex into gold bricks in your basement, because even if Bill Gates sued Wal-Mart into bankruptcy, there still wouldn’t be a big enough pile of money to cover the losses for more than a couple of years.

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