Cloud encoding APIs are a dying breed: lessons learned from building three cloud video startups

This text discusses the evolution of cloud-based encoding services and their integration with audience data and just-in-time (JIT) encoding. The founding team of Mux previously founded Zencoder, an early player in the cloud-based encoding space. They also built Video.js, the first open-source HTML5 video player. In 2012, Zencoder was acquired by Brightcove, and Amazon launched Elastic Transcoder, which closely resembled Zencoder's API. Standalone cloud encoding APIs are on their way out due to reasons such as direct access to audience-specific data and JIT encoding. The future of video encoding is deeply integrated with audience data, and advanced video platforms are doing this today.