Cuban's fixation on live video may have something to do with his interest in sports, which people like to watch live. We might also notice his other conflict of interest from HDNet, a traditional linear cable channel.<p>Even if everyone doesn't watch Heroes at the same time, you can bet there's a peak time of day where millions of people are watching <i>something</i>. It may actually cost more to deliver 1M <i>different</i> streams to 1M people than to deliver one live stream. Or it may cost less if you can prefetch and buffer it like crazy.<p>The question of why YouTube doesn't use the latest technology is an interesting one. Is it more expensive? Does it "not scale"? Do they just not care since it's free anyway?