system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why livestreams (Twitch, Youtube, etc) have such a clear and smooth quality while video calls (Skype, etc) are so laggy and low quality?

I watch a Youtube channel called Funhaus and they often stream using their webcam and the quality is perfect (also used for recording). They also play games with other Youtube channels and they use Skype to chat with them before and after matches, but the quality is incredibly bad. Why?
gpt
Because you aren't watching them "live". There's a delay corresponding to the amount of time it takes to send the data to the streaming services, then to you. Once the streaming service has the data, they can stream it to you unhindered. The delay allows for perfect playback. Because a long delay wouldn't be acceptable with video chatting services, this method can't be used, and the data has to be streamed at a lower quality or with chunks missing to eliminate delays as much as possible.