YouTube "Feather" Beta Seeks Lowest-Latency Connections

YouTube, or any video content for that matter, is tough to watch on a  low-bandwidth Internet access connection or even a computer with insufficient processing power, such as some netbooks.

So YouTube is in beta testing of "Feather," a way of optmizing latency performance on limited hardware or low-bandwidth connections.  Feather is said to work by “severely limiting the features" and "making use of advanced Web techniques for reducing the total amount of bytes downloaded by the browser."

The video playback page of Youtube Feather is fully transferred after downloading 52 Kilobytes of data compared to 391 Kilobytes that the standard pages require, some note.

Youtube Feather achieves the better performance by partially by removing standard YouTube features such as posting of comments, rating videos, or viewing all comments or customizing the embedded player.

The Feather beta suggests why strict versions of "network neutrality" might hinder innovation or end user experience. Feather works by blocking some bits and features. It is an opt-in feature, and that also is part of the danger over-zealous network neutrality rules represent. Users might want to selectively tune their use of some applications, blocking some features and bits, to optimize the experience.