• FrostyTheDoo@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    I’m not a very technical person, but is there really a difference in total power consumed for streaming data in real time vs. downloading it to watch locally later? Like in terms of data and electricity used end to end, I assume it would be the same. But again, I’m somewhat dumb

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 @pawb.social
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      16 hours ago

      It is the same, assuming it’s 1 machine to 1 machine. Streaming is still downloading the thing to your machine, just to a temporary space while you also watch the bits you’ve already received.

      But it generally isn’t just 1 machine to 1 machine. Downloading from a torrent isn’t 1 machine to 1 machine, either. That’s actually kinda the whole point with bittorrent.