Ars Technica reports on changing traffic patterns, with streaming video rising while p2p traffic, overall, stagnating, now accounting for only one quarter of the overall traffic. They conclude:
The shift, as it take hold around the world, benefits everyone. For content owners, the gain is obvious: the vast majority of high-traffic streaming content is legal and licensed (Dr. Who, Battlestar Galactica, Colbert Report, etc.). This stands in contrast with P2P, of course, and even though user-generated content sites like YouTube still have copyright issues, those issues are "above water" and easy to deal with.For users, legitimate on-demand access to huge troves of high-quality video removes the risk of lawsuits, but it also has other beneficial effects. For one thing, the P2P blocking/delaying/filtering schemes being trotted out around the world don't affect most of these services. ISPs have gotten away with such blocks using the argument that most P2P is illegal anyway; without that support, it will politically be much harder to block or limit access to legal streaming in the same way.
In a way, this seems to follow suit with a more general trend related to web2.0 of centralizing infrastructure, thus the ability of big organisations, media companies, to reassert control. Very troubling.
