

What’s up with WhatsApp and WebRTC? - slac
https://webrtchacks.com/whats-up-with-whatsapp-and-webrtc/

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joeyspn
> The intent here is to try a connection that is almost guaranteed to work
> first (I used a similar rationale in the minimal viable SDP post recently
> even) and then switch to a peer-to-peer connection in order to minimize the
> load on the TURN servers. Wow, that is pretty slick.

It's quite interesting. It reminds me of this paper[0] I read some years ago
while researching about P2P. It's about how Spotify accomplishes the media
streaming... It goes this way IIRC:

1.- Spotify first reads the user's cache looking for media chunks (usually 50%
of the played media comes from here since users play the same songs
repeatedly)

2.- If the media is not found, then starts streaming directly from server
(0-10% of the media comes this way) while peers organise and aggregate (few
seconds).

3.- Finally the rest is streamed via P2P (usually 40% of the media).

In both cases, it's certainly a smart approach for a _slick_ UX since the
users don't perceive the long setup/loading time required in a direct P2P
connection.

[0]
[http://wenku.baidu.com/view/0d85d7264b35eefdc8d33352.html](http://wenku.baidu.com/view/0d85d7264b35eefdc8d33352.html)

