Streaming Media Blog
streamingmediablog.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2019
Dan Rayburn writes about CDNs, video streaming, and the business deals and pricing behind online video delivery.
What HN saysHN commenters cite it as a source for which CDNs big companies use, such as Amazon with Fastly, Apple's iCloud Private Relay, and CDN pricing.
15HN people shared it
9linked it in comments
7stories submitted
58story points
2 years agolast shared
2019people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Fastly amazon homepage4 people · first shared 2021
- 2Apple Using Akamai, Fastly, Cloudflare for Their New iCloud Private Relay2 people · 5 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 3Heres comcast netflix deal structured numbers2 people · first shared 2021
- 4What Disney+ Traffic Could Be Worth to CDNs1 people · 43 points · first shared 2019 · 4 comments on HN
- 5They’re Back Adobe Flash Media Server and RTMP SDK Are Not Done Yet1 people · 5 points · first shared 2019 · 1 comments on HN
- 6Update on CDN Market and Akamai's Business1 people · 2 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 7List of CDN Vendors and History of All CDNs Across the Industry [Nov 25, 2024]1 people · 1 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 8Live Blogging Super Bowl Lviii Stream on Paramount+ Across Devices1 people · 1 points · first shared 2024 · 1 comments on HN
- 9Video streaming operator and upgrading codec1 people · 1 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 10Fastly amazon homepage.html](title1 people · first shared 2021
- 11Cdn pricing pressure1 people · first shared 2025
What HN people wrote when they linked it
cbg0 · 2025-01-15
Bandwidth has become super cheap nowadays. Even on a CDN if you have a large enough commit the prices go very low, so you can imagine what the real cost must be:
> In Q1 of this year, I completed my yearly CDN pricing survey of over 500 customers and saw the lowest pricing rates I have ever seen for the largest customers, as low as $0.00038 per GB delivered in the US. Blended pricing globally at $0.0006. (Please note, this doesn’t mean these are the prices you should be asking for or paying!) Lower pricing is okay if traffic and commits are growing, but they aren’t
https://www.streamingmediablog.com/2024/05/cdn-pricing-pressure.html
lathiat · 2023-04-19
They're using multiple providers including Fastly, Akamai and Cloudflare: https://www.streamingmediablog.com/2021/06/apple-private-relay.html
ralfd · 2021-10-01
Two points:
1. In 2014 Netflix made similar deals with AT&T and Verizon.
2. It is not extortion by the ISP, "pay up or else". But Netflix was simply building up its own CDN-capabilities. They ditched Akamai and Limelight and for that they needed their own server endpoints into the networks.
https://www.streamingmediablog.com/2014/02/heres-comcast-netflix-deal-…
busymom0 · 2021-07-12
Are you certain? As of last year, Amazon was switching to Fastly for their retain images:
https://www.streamingmediablog.com/2020/05/fastly-amazon-homepage.html
optiomal_isgood · 2021-06-08
They used to use AWS CloudFront and switched to Fastly, someone shared this in another comment:
[https://www.streamingmediablog.com/2020/05/fastly-amazon-homepage.html… CDN Fastly Wins Content Delivery Business For Amazon.com and IMDB Websites)
Quoting:
> "But with small object delivery, like images loading fast on Amazon’s home page, it’s the opposite. Customers will pay for a better level of performance and in this case, Fastly clearly outperformed Amazon’s own CDN CloudFront. This isn’t too surprising since CloudFront’s strength isn’t web performance, or even live streaming, but rather on-demand delivery of video and downloads."
adzicg · 2021-06-08
looks like amazon.com started using fastly in May 2020 (https://www.streamingmediablog.com/2020/05/fastly-amazon-homepage.html… so it's not an AWS thing
mpitt · 2021-06-08
Amazon.com uses Fastly https://www.streamingmediablog.com/2020/05/fastly-amazon-homepage.html
lordpankake · 2021-06-08
Cloudfront, by Amazon's own admission, specialises in high bandwidth delivery (ie huge videos). Fastly has consistently better performance as a small object cache, which makes it the choice for web assets
https://www.streamingmediablog.com/2020/05/fastly-amazon-homepage.html
criddell · 2024-11-16
It isn't Apple, it's Netflix.
Remember back in 2014 or so when Netflix users on Comcast were getting slow connections and buffering pauses? It didn't affect people who watched Netflix via Apple TV because Netflix served Apple TV users with a different network.
> In a little known, but public fact, anyone who is on Comcast and using Apple TV to stream Netflix wasn’t having quality problems. The reason for this is that Netflix is using Level 3 and Limelight to stream their content specifically to the Apple TV device. What this shows is that Netflix is the one that decides and controls how they get their content to each device and whether they do it via their own servers or a third party. Netflix decides which third party CDNs to use and when Netflix uses their own CDN, they decide whom to buy transit from, with what capacity, in what locations and how many connections they buy, from the transit provider. Netflix is the one in control of this, not Comcast or any ISP.
https://www.streamingmediablog.com/2014/02/heres-comcast-netflix-deal-…