Netflix’s new series Squid Game has taken the world by storm; though it was only released two and half weeks ago, the dystopian drama is set to overtake Bridgerton as the streaming giants most watch original of all time. But, a little (big?) streaming company over in Korea isn’t too happy about the success of this show, claiming it’s created “increased traffic” and bumped up their costs.
In fact, the internet service provider SK Broadband is so unimpressed with the popularity of Squid Game that it’s suing Netflix and demanding that they pay the extra costs from the increased traffic.
A Seoul court has agreed with SK Broadband, deeming that Netflix should “reasonably” give something in return to the internet service provider for extra network usage. According to Reuters, “South Korean lawmakers have spoken out against content providers who do not pay for network usage despite generating explosive traffic.”
An analysis of data in South Korea has found that Squid Game has bumped Netflix up to become the second largest data traffic generator, coming in closely behind YouTube.
SK Broadband compared data about the amount of traffic that was generated from May 2018, to the amount that’s generated in September 2021. The rate has apparently jumped 24 fold, hitting a massive 1.2 trillion bits of data per second. Considering Squid Game was released on September 17th, 2021, it seems mighty convenient that traffic has risen so considerably.
Netflix is known for keeping tight lipped about their streaming statistics – and in their trademark style, they’ve responded to the lawsuit with a very vague comment. The streaming platform has stated that “it will review SK Broadband’s claim, and seek dialogue and explore ways in the meantime to work with SK Broadband to ensure customers are not affected.”
But, it isn’t just gigabytes and terabytes that the success of Netflix is affecting – it’s also sky rocketed the sale of candy in South Korea. A South Korean brittle sugar candy called dalgona features in the third challenge on the series, which sees contestants shape the confectionary into pre-determined shapes.
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An Yong-hui, a Koren candy maker who prepared the dalgona that featured on the hit show, has shared that he “hasn’t been able to go home for a week” because of the endless lines of eager Squid Game fans desperate to try the treat. Prior to the show, Yong-hui shared that he’d sell less than 200 per day, he nows hits a daily sales quota of over 500 dalgonas.
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