Yes and no. The link uses slightly more bandwidth as an image of the same size but that's not the real point. The issue is the total bandwidth consumption
I don't have the numbers in front of my but, for math's sake let's say that "average" size is 100K. That is 100K that is shot out every time somebody opens that post (it is not cached locally on your PC).
You then multiply that times the the number of views and you have a large number.
Let's take your Segway Video Classics post. It has four (4) embedded links and has been viewed 81 times:
4 x 100K x 81 = 32.4 MB
Not a lot unless you are Frank Tropea and are hosting the site out of your own pocket and have bandwidth charges to pay for the embedded link! (most don't, btw as it is just a pointer). Of course, if you are on a non-broadband account you are looking at a slow load abut disabling the autoplay function is a great touch.
Now, let's take the flipside, which is that 1/2 those people click on the link. If I remember correctly the average YouTube vide is just over 6.1 MB in size....
4 x 6.1 x 40 = 976 MB just streamed across the internet thanks to YouTube (and you
).
The point is that the viral nature of YouTube is killing the internet. As of June of this year YouTube accounted for 20% of all HTTP traffic (equal to 10% of all network traffic). Read that again....one company, one site, one application accounts for 10% of all traffic.
More numbers:
As of June YouTube was serving approx 100,000,000 (yep, 100 MILLION) videos a day. Average size, 6.1MB, that is 610,000,000 MB a day or 595.7 TB a day...every single day of the year.
Based on current worldwide network size, a constant growth rate in users, and the ever increasing downloads via HTTP (most often termed recreational downloads) there are strong indications that for many the internet will slow to a crawl between 2010 and 2012.
We proved how important controlling recreational internet at the local campus of a US college. In a matter of hours we were able to control the flow of P2P, YouTube, and Facebook (the three worst offenders on the net) and cut their bandwidth consumption by greater than 70%...saving them more than 55GB a day. Sure, some of the students aren't happy but...who's paying the bandwidth bill?
Anyway, I need to jump off my bandwagon here. I could go on forever.
Steven