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* it serves multiple sizes for faster/slower connections

* it serves it with correct codecs, whatever the original input

* from local servers that are close to the user, so it's faster

* it doesn't kill your bills when the video becomes moderately popular

* discussions built-in

* virality built-in

* it won't go down when you forget to pay your server

* you don't need to deal with hosting software updates

You can solve some of that with CDNs, some of them even do some kind of video players that do all the ffmpeg stuff for you, but then you have a third party in the mix again.



> it doesn't kill your bills when the video becomes moderately popular

Even a paid service, Vimeo, made news a few years ago because they would bill video uploaders for "moderately popular" videos: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30686704




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