More than one has done it. We are working, preparing food and we have a Netflix series or some other streaming service in the background. Sometimes we return to watch the program, but other times we continue working, talking on the phone or we even fall asleep while the series runs and runs, functioning as ambient noise. This is not uncommon, it is done a lot and more in these times of working from home. To prevent this from continuing persistently, media companies such as Netflix and YouTube implemented the “Are you still there?” button.
Of course, many of us see this button as a nuisance after the fourth or fifth chapter of your favorite series, when you want to see what happened with the plot after the previous episode. But why is it important? And, above all, what does it have to do with energy, the topic we address in this space.
This button exists because if it were not so, we would surely leave the television on ad infinitum. When we addressed the topic of light pollution, we concluded that when the consumption of an additional unit of something does not generate a cost for you, or the cost is not perceived in the short term, the consumer will tend to increase their consumption. But the fact that it does not cost you does not mean that it does not cost YouTube or Netflix for the series to run while you fall asleep.
This is because the series of these platforms rest on servers that require energy to be available at all times. And, the greater the intensity of consumption, the more intensity of processing is generated, which requires more energy, on the one hand —because the server is in active operation all the time—; on the other hand, because they generate heat that requires more energy to keep the rooms where said servers are cold.
In recent years two phenomena have occurred; the first, the energy consumption of the cloud, that is, the servers of data companies such as Google, Microsoft, Netflix; Amazon and Dropbox, among others, has increased. Nevertheless, the second effect is that energy consumption has become more efficient per unit of work performed. This means that every day more energy is consumed to maintain digital services in the cloud, although much progress has been made in energy efficiency.
In that sense, the idea behind the “Are you still there?” button is not because Netflix cares about you, it is a measure of consumption efficiency and, at the end of the day, of energy efficiency. This is because if all of us left series running all the time, surely the company’s energy consumption would increase.
But not only that, greenhouse gas emissions would also increase, both those that you cause through the consumption of your series at home, and those of the company for keeping its servers operating in an inefficient way while no one is watching TV. We will go deeper into that next week.
However, not everything is bad, this could also be good for you. Because to the extent that you are more conscious of your energy consumption at home, you will avoid surprises in your electricity bill every two months, with which you save electricity and contribute to mitigating climate change.
So remember, if you have the habit of waiting until the server asks you “Are you still there?” and you are really not paying attention to the series that runs incessantly, perhaps it is time to rethink your energy consumption for the good of the planet and of your pocket.
This article was originally published by Business Insider México.
Date: November 11, 2020
Original Link: https://businessinsider.mx/sigues-ahi-boton-ver-series-netflix-streaming-opinion-energia-circular/ [offline]
Archived Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20211204081743/https://businessinsider.mx/sigues-ahi-boton-ver-series-netflix-streaming-opinion-energia-circular/ [Archived]
