Squid Game is on pace to become Netflix’s biggest show of all-time. It’s so popular that a man with a real-life phone number used in the show is getting around 4,000 calls a day; it’s so popular that Netflix’s stock is at an all-time high; it’s so popular that the streaming service is getting sued because it’s using up too much internet.
Reuters reports that “South Korean Internet service provider SK Broadband has sued Netflix to pay for costs from increased network traffic and maintenance work because of a surge of viewers to the U.S. firm’s content.” The Netflix traffic handled by SK Broadband now requires 1.2 trillion bits of data to be processed every second. I’m not entirely sure how that compares to, say, Disney+ or Hulu, but I do know that 1.2 tacos is not many tacos. But 1.2 trillion tacos? That’s a lot of tacos.
The move comes after a Seoul court said Netflix should “reasonably” give something in return to the internet service provider for network usage, and multiple South Korean lawmakers have spoken out against content providers who do not pay for network usage despite generating explosive traffic… SK estimated the network usage fee Netflix needed to pay was about 27.2 billion won ($22.9 million) in 2020 alone, the court document said.
If only there was a way to make a quick 27.2 billion won, possibly by winning a series of children’s games.
(Via Reuters)
