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This should really help readjust the expectations of the "just pay websites directly with tips instead of ads" crowd. TPB is a massive website who's users have

This should really help readjust the expectations of the "just pay websites directly with tips instead of ads" crowd. TPB is a massive website who's users have to be the ideal adblocking, early adopter, crypto-supporting crowd. If this is what a website can expect then continue to expect adtech to invade your privacy and crash your browsers.

jszymborski 7y ago
I think you might want to factor in the fact that when you're going on to TPB, your goal is to get something for nothing. Add to that the fact that people might feel strange giving donations to TPB for not giving money to the creators whose bits you are downloading. Finally, I'm pretty sure donating bitcoin to TPB is a good way to get yourself implicated legally. It's non-trivial to launder bitcoins, no matter what the film industry wants you to believe.
- eukaryote31 7y ago
  Nontrivial, yes, but for said crypto-supporting crowd I don't think it would be a stretch to presume that a lot of them are the kind that would know how.
  - toyg 7y ago
    That further reinforces the parent poster’s point: if you’re the sort of person who learnt how to launder crypto and goes to TPB to save money, you are unlikely to be the type who will voluntarily surrender money for some sort of cause.
livueta 7y ago
An interesting counterexample is the many private trackers that do just fine off of crypto donations. Without naming names I'm personally aware (as in, I can go look at the donation status pages) of at least four that rake in $500+/mo with a small fraction of TPB's usercount. I think this says more about the type of user who hits up TPB vs. the type of user who has accounts on private trackers - it's probably a reasonable generalization to say that a member of a private tracker has a higher level of tech sophistication, including with cryptocurrencies, than the average TPB visitor. Heck, my boomer relatives use TPB on occasion. Interactions with TPB are also a lot more ephemeral and anonymous - private trackers can give donators a cupcake forum icon or whatever whereas I'm sure 99+% of TPB visitors have never made an account and probably aren't even regular visitors. Similarly, users of private trackers are likely on average significantly more invested in the continued success of the site and therefore more willing to cough up, in contrast to many TPB visitors who probably ended up there via a general search and wouldn't really notice if they were grabbing a torrent from any of the other big public trackers. So, I think it's fair to say that expectations for certain types of sites - ones that have a low/no barrier to entry, are functionally replaceable units, serve less technically-inclined users, and have a rep for legal sketchiness - need readjusting. Others, especially ones that provide persistent, difficult-to-replace value for users, seem to do ok.
- rwmurrayVT 7y ago
  Your anecdotal evidence is certainly stark compared to TPB. It just seems bewildering the largest website in the field has such limited donations. They have had multiple takedowns and legal issues. It just seems to me it would have had a more successful donation drive. I just don't think the whole shift of web revenue is remotely feasible for most websites. Hell, we get paywall complaining on some of the major news outlet posts on HN.

jszymborski 7y ago

I think you might want to factor in the fact that when you're going on to TPB, your goal is to get something for nothing. Add to that the fact that people might feel strange giving donations to TPB for not giving money to the creators whose bits you are downloading. Finally, I'm pretty sure donating bitcoin to TPB is a good way to get yourself implicated legally. It's non-trivial to launder bitcoins, no matter what the film industry wants you to believe.

eukaryote31 7y ago
Nontrivial, yes, but for said crypto-supporting crowd I don't think it would be a stretch to presume that a lot of them are the kind that would know how.
- toyg 7y ago
  That further reinforces the parent poster’s point: if you’re the sort of person who learnt how to launder crypto and goes to TPB to save money, you are unlikely to be the type who will voluntarily surrender money for some sort of cause.

livueta 7y ago

An interesting counterexample is the many private trackers that do just fine off of crypto donations. Without naming names I'm personally aware (as in, I can go look at the donation status pages) of at least four that rake in $500+/mo with a small fraction of TPB's usercount. I think this says more about the type of user who hits up TPB vs. the type of user who has accounts on private trackers - it's probably a reasonable generalization to say that a member of a private tracker has a higher level of tech sophistication, including with cryptocurrencies, than the average TPB visitor. Heck, my boomer relatives use TPB on occasion. Interactions with TPB are also a lot more ephemeral and anonymous - private trackers can give donators a cupcake forum icon or whatever whereas I'm sure 99+% of TPB visitors have never made an account and probably aren't even regular visitors. Similarly, users of private trackers are likely on average significantly more invested in the continued success of the site and therefore more willing to cough up, in contrast to many TPB visitors who probably ended up there via a general search and wouldn't really notice if they were grabbing a torrent from any of the other big public trackers. So, I think it's fair to say that expectations for certain types of sites - ones that have a low/no barrier to entry, are functionally replaceable units, serve less technically-inclined users, and have a rep for legal sketchiness - need readjusting. Others, especially ones that provide persistent, difficult-to-replace value for users, seem to do ok.

rwmurrayVT 7y ago
Your anecdotal evidence is certainly stark compared to TPB. It just seems bewildering the largest website in the field has such limited donations. They have had multiple takedowns and legal issues. It just seems to me it would have had a more successful donation drive. I just don't think the whole shift of web revenue is remotely feasible for most websites. Hell, we get paywall complaining on some of the major news outlet posts on HN.