Examine how companies like Netflix, Spotify, and others use the cloud.
Cloud computing is the invisible backbone of many services we use daily. 'Netflix' is a classic example of a company that went all-in on the cloud. They migrated from their own data centers to AWS to handle their massive and highly variable streaming demand. The cloud's elasticity allows them to scale their infrastructure up during peak viewing hours (like evening weekends) and scale it down during quiet periods, optimizing costs. They also use the cloud for their massive data analytics pipeline, processing viewer data to personalize recommendations and inform content acquisition. 'Spotify' is another media giant that relies on the cloud (GCP) for its global music streaming service. The cloud provides the storage for its vast music library and the global network to deliver low-latency audio streams to millions of users simultaneously. For the financial industry, companies use the cloud for high-performance computing to run complex risk analysis models and simulations, tasks that would be prohibitively expensive with on-premises hardware. Even in gaming, cloud services like AWS GameLift and Azure PlayFab provide backend infrastructure for multiplayer games, handling session management, matchmaking, and player data, allowing game developers to focus on creating great games instead of managing servers.