Reports out of Europe this week say that as a result of the lockdowns over there, too many people are using Netflix and YouTube, and as a result, the Internet is becoming overloaded and slow.
As a result, YouTube and Netflix will temporarily reduce video quality in the United Kingdom and the European Union amid the COVID-19 outbreak.
The move is said to prevent users from overwhelming the internet with streaming requests and will run for at least 30 days, according to TheBlaze.
On Friday, YouTube — which is owned by Google — announced that the decision was made to ensure “smooth functioning of the internet” during a time of worldwide crisis. The move will also free up internet bandwidth for employees telecommuting to their places of employment.
TheBlaze
Even local people using services such as Skype and Video Messenger calling have been noticing reduced quality over the last week with some users being unable to have useable video connections at all, having to resort to old fashioned voice calls only. My sources say this is a particularly bad problem for calls to France at the moment.
And at a time when Joe Biden has just found out about video conferencing too!
They tell me there’s ways we can do teleconferencing via us all being in different locations.
Joe Biden
But of course, we don’t want too many people resorting to Netflixing and Chilling either as the baby boom that may result could well overflow our maternity services.
I guess the fact that Pornhub is giving away free premium access to Italians probably doesn’t help either.
Actually I wonder if “Angry Andy” Andrew Little has figured out what the saying means yet?
Given that we here at TheBFD think that lockdown, sorry I mean Virus Response Level Orange on our patented BFD Doom-o-meter will be with us probably sometime this week, may we humbly suggest that you get in early and panic buy all the videos you want and download them while you still can.
*Not an actual quote!
Photoshopped image credit: Boondecker
And if that doesn’t fill up enough of your self-isolation, condoms people, make sure you use condoms.
New Zealand can’t afford to pay you for sitting on your arse at home minding babies, no matter how much the Labour and Green wombles might suggest we can.