Livestream offers paid and free streaming service - the free service is free to the streamer but viewers need to log on. The paid service is $50/month USD if you run it for the full year, $100+/month if you pay month by month. That is on top of the connection that the Project has to pay for to get the signal out to the internet and it has to be a fast enough connection to be able to stream video which for those who don't have unlimited data on your internet connections will know how expensive that can be. If you embed the streaming on your website, there would be all the costs associated with people coming to your website to view the video. Webcams are expensive to run folks, that's why many/most are attached to government websites - they have their own servers and already have large traffic numbers, so a bit more hurts only a little.
If we were to lose CBC and we wanted to continue with our webcam(s), we'd have to go to Livestream or something similar. And I wouldn't be embedding it on our website even though I would want to, we couldn't afford it even if everyone involved donated. We have 500,000 to 1,000,000 viewers (some who stay logged in 24/7) over a 45-50 day period for our cams. If I could afford to have the paid service I would because my understanding is that it is ad-free but if I didn't have partners on our internet connections, I might consider the free service too if it meant I could offer a webcam that year ...
PLEASE NOTE, this is just food for thought, I'm not encouraging anyone to sign up for anything. These days, signing up for services - facebook, twitter, webcams, online shopping - requires providing more information than I personally think we should have to give/give-up, so my comments are just for informational purposes only, they are the kinds of things projects have to balance. And for those wondering about the information they provide to our project - it goes no where but here - we do not rent, share or sell any personal information.
