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If you combine the energy costs of delivering streaming video and the client side costs of playing video and executing JavaScript I have no doubt porn far outstrips Bitcoin. Hell, I bet JavaScript bloat from adtech alone and exceeds the totally energy budget of France.


There are 3.4 billion internet users.

It takes about 30 W to watch video in a browser [1].

Assuming every internet user watches 85 minutes of video per day [2] (517 hr/year), video consumption is 52 TWh per year. Or less than half of than the bitcoin network.

Google uses 12 TWh per year [3]. Assuming Google is entirely focused on serving the world's video (it likely could), that still is ~half of the bitcoin network.

(France consumes about 480 TWh per year [4])

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/05/microsoft-internet-explore...

[2] https://www.marketingcharts.com/digital/video-110520

[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbryce/2020/10/21/googles-...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_France


Seems like I lost my bet if those numbers are correct, kudos on doing the math!




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