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The Environmental Cost of Internet Porn (theatlantic.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report (condensed for space): Online streaming is a win for the environment. Streaming music eliminates all that physical material -- CDs, jewel cases, cellophane, shipping boxes, fuel -- and can reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by 40 percent or more. Scientists who analyze the environmental impact of the internet tout the benefits of this "dematerialization," observing that energy use and carbon-dioxide emissions will drop as media increasingly can be delivered over the internet. But this theory might have a major exception: porn. Since the turn of the century, the pornography industry has experienced two intense hikes in popularity. In the early 2000s, broadband enabled higher download speeds. Then, in 2008, the advent of so-called tube sites allowed users to watch clips for free, like people watch videos on YouTube. Adam Grayson, the chief financial officer of the adult company Evil Angel, calls the latter hike "the great mushroom-cloud porn explosion of 2008." Precise numbers don't exist to quantify specifics, but the impression across the industry is that viewership is way, way up. Pornhub, the world's most popular porn site, provides some of the only accessible data on its yearly web-traffic report. The first Year In Review post in 2013 tabulated that 14.7 billion people visited the site. By 2016, the number of visitors had almost doubled, to 23 billion, and those visitors watched more than 4.59 billion hours of porn. And Pornhub is just one site. Using a formula that Netflix published on its blog in 2015, Nathan Ensmenger, a professor at Indiana University who is writing a book about the environmental history of the computer, calculates that if Pornhub streams video as efficiently as Netflix (0.0013 kWh per streaming hour), it used 5.967 million kWh in 2016. For comparison, that's about the same amount of energy 11,000 light bulbs would use if left on for a year. And operating with Netflix's efficiency would be a best-case scenario for the porn site, Ensmenger believes.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Phrasing!
You had me all worked up about the amount of electricity used, but then - just 11k bulbs?
That's not even enough to light a single wing of Al Gores' mansion (here's I'm just speaking about the primary mansion, not all of the secondary ones).
Think I'll skip the outrage on this one, especially considering the vast benefit that pro brings humanity. You wonder why there's not been a WWIII? Internet porn.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
NO ONE CARES!
"And operating with Netflix's efficiency would be a best-case scenario for the porn site, Ensmenger believes"
I'd like to know why. I am not fan of the Internet Porn industry, i think its harming society and based on this article the planet but to say, "And operating with Netflix's efficiency would be a best-case scenario for the porn site, Ensmenger believes"
Seems just nakedly prejudiced. I mean does Netflix have the help of data center angels, that don't lend their divine intervention to pornhub? Do you subscribe? I thought Internet porn was almost universally free as in beer? Why would think a pornhub a sophisticated marketing machine that has to derive its revenue primarily form razor thin ad impression payments would be doing anything other than in the most efficient way possible?
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
What about the fact that folks have a *right* to do whatever they want with their computer, their bandwidth, and their fucking life! Jezuz, did this come from the same assholes who were shaking their fingers at us over Bitcoin energy consumption? Here's a hint: go fuck yourselves. Nobody gives a two small shits about your opinion on what's "okay" for them to be using resources they paid for. If you think it's a waste, well, then we have something in common because I think all the watts/joules put into SJW hot air is a big waste of energy, too. Judgmental pricks what they are.
Did they also work out the environmental impact of all the cute kitten, epic fail, stupid human tricks, vBlogs, etc., videos as well?
Bet it is much, much higher than just porn.
So, watching porn uses ONLY 0.0013 kWh per streaming hour. Just about ANYTHING else will use heaps more...like watching TV (~110W), making tea (~2 KW), driving a car (tens of KW).......
THEREFORE watching porn saves a huge amount of energy that you'd otherwise be using instead.
The vanguard of the antiporn antisex puritan movement has shifted from the old stodgy religious right to the new left. You can see it as the arguments have gradually shifted from destruction of morality and family values to the exploitation of women and harm to their psychological health and ridiculous appeals to the environment that porn, sex and prostitution entail according to them. Harlotry is now sex slavery. The sunday school marm has transformed into the wizened womyn's studies professor. One argument they both seem to use is the crime factor though. The more things change I guess.
It's a porn shift. Trees are spared because magazines not published anymore. All the books that once populated shelves in "adult" book stores. Then there's the peep shows that are gone as well with their dark booths. I knew one Tech Sergeant when I was in the Air Force who have over 500 8mm (the old reel type) films. The simple fact is that streaming is replacing traditional porn materials. I can't help but believe it's environmentally better.
Thought this article was going to be about all the kleenix in landfills...
What hogwash "By 2016, the number of visitors had almost doubled, to 23 billion, ".... there's only 7.4B people on the entire planet..... Only 3 billion people have internet access today.. I'm fairly certain my 90 year old grand mother has never (on purpose) been to pornhub... and given the punishment of Muslim countries... there's no way it's in the billions of visitors. This means of those who do visit are really, really active..
"We'll leave a light on for you!" I never understood before!
Bruce Perens.
wasting all the power?!!
"By 2016, the number of visitors had almost doubled, to 23 billion" There are only 7.6 billion people on the planet, half don't have internet much less pornhub. How can 23 billion visitors or really is it a repeat business. And so what, it's porn or hookers, what uses more fuel?
23 billion visitors, totaling 4.59 billion hours (275.4 billion minutes), which means on average each visitor only spent 11.97 (~12) minutes per visit.
That checks out, considering it takes like 5 minutes before finding something I want to fap to.
Seriously, this is VERY little power, especially for 4.6 billion hours of (exciting) entertainment! I mean, just my country house solar roof produces 15MWh/year - just 400 of those relatively small solar roofs are enough to power world porn! Or compare to the bitcoin network's 32TWh consumption - that's more than 5000 times the claimed amount of streaming porn (without the actual benefits!). I mean, the summary tries to say one thing, but the numbers seem to indicate the exact opposite!
Also, it is not "23 billion visitors", it is "23 billion visits". Unless our streaming porn is popular among extraterrestrial civilizations with populations numbering in the dozens of billions...
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It was officially going to be the PornHub/Hour unit, but the average person only lasted 12 minutes at a time so it became the PornHub/Minute unit of energy.
If I had a DeLorean... I would probably only drive it from time to time.