You Need Frugal Developers

I was sad when I heard Paramount axed the Comedy Central website. Twenty-five years of content, gone. Why couldn’t they just let the site run indefinitely, even on autopilot? The reason: cost-cutting measures. Disney+ made a similar move when Willow flopped. Instead of letting the show quietly live on the platform, they erased it completely. Again, for cost-cutting measures.

It got me thinking about how companies approach costs, especially technical ones. Sometimes the answer isn’t to cut content but to change how you run things behind the scenes.

My team once requested access to a tool at work. Finance said it was too expensive to get another license. We spent six months fighting for access. When we finally got it, we discovered everyone in the company was on the high-end plan. Worse, there was an account named “Sample-test” that cost $15,000 a year. We optimized the setup, brought the bill down to $1,000 a year, and nothing about the tool’s usefulness changed.

The lesson? You don’t always need to cut. Sometimes you just need to approach problems with a frugal mindset.

Why Streaming Costs Money

Let’s talk about streaming services like Paramount+ and Disney+. If they’re blaming cost-cutting for deleting old shows, is it really that expensive to keep content up?

Streaming comes down to two technical costs:

1. Preparing videos for streaming.
2. Serving those videos to viewers.

Preparing Videos

Preparing a video for streaming, also known as transcoding, can be expensive up front. For example, Netflix doesn’t just store a video in one format. Instead, they generate hundreds of versions of that video at different resolutions and bitrates. This allows them to serve videos that match your device’s capabilities. If you open Netflix on a 360p phone, the platform doesn’t try to force 4K down your screen. It serves you the right version, saving bandwidth and ensuring smooth playback.

Transcoding is a computationally intensive process, but the beauty is that you only need to do it once. Once a video is prepped, you don’t have to think about it again.

Serving Videos

Serving a video is about hosting and delivering it efficiently. Videos are stored across multiple servers, ideally as close as possible to the audience. It’s a dynamic process: a rarely watched video doesn’t need optimization or prime hosting. But when something hits Squid Game levels of popularity, copies get moved to servers closer to the viewers to reduce delays and bandwidth costs.

The result? Unpopular videos cost almost nothing. Storage is cheap. Bandwidth costs are minimal if no one’s watching.

So when Paramount deletes content to “save costs,” it’s not because a handful of Daily Show episodes were about to bankrupt them. It’s because they lack the mindset, and the developers, who know how to run things efficiently.

Frugal Developers Make the Difference

Frugal developers aren’t about penny-pinching. They’re about smart engineering. They look at a problem and ask, “How do we make this cost-effective without sacrificing quality?” This mindset separates Netflix and YouTube, leaders in streaming, from companies that burn cash unnecessarily.

Here’s what Paramount+ (or any streaming service) could do:

Build a Three-Tier System for Content

Instead of treating all videos equally, classify them based on their optimization needs:

1. Tier 1: New or popular shows. These need heavy optimization, dynamic hosting, and fast delivery.
2. Tier 2: Commonly watched shows. Optimized but without the high cost of Tier 1.
3. Tier 3: Rarely watched content. Minimal optimization, lower-priority hosting, but still accessible to viewers.

This approach saves money while preserving content. You don’t need to wipe out an old show just because it doesn’t get millions of views.

Paramount+ Rushed to the Game

Paramount+ borrowed the “plus” in their name and rushed to compete with the likes of Netflix and Disney+. Now they’re paying for it. Bad service, high costs, and a lack of frugal thinking are holding them back. (As of writing, they’re sitting at a 1.2-star rating on Trustpilot.)

It’s not too late, though. What they need now are developers who know how to cut costs smartly. Not by deleting content, but by building systems that run efficiently. Frugal developers can keep costs low, optimize operations, and ensure that a handful of old videos isn’t seen as a financial burden.

Because at the end of the day, cost-cutting doesn’t mean burning down the house. It just means finding a better way to keep the lights on.

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