7 ms·

To me, BitTorrent feels a lot like Blockchain: interesting tech that doesn't seem to be able to find a practical and useful application (proportionate to the at

To me, BitTorrent feels a lot like Blockchain: interesting tech that doesn't seem to be able to find a practical and useful application (proportionate to the attendant hype). Which is not to say that either can't, they just haven't yet. Why? EDIT: while I don't (yet) consider myself delirious, responses to this comment have illuminated how little I know about the influence and application of BitTorrent. In other words, I retract the above opinion.

mawalu 6y ago
You mean beside being responsible for ~50% of the global internet traffic in 2009? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent
- oblio 6y ago
  Yeah, but what's the current number? I'd be surprised if it were more than 5-10% these days. 2009 was 11 years ago, the internet was a much smaller and less regulated place.
  - ffpip 6y ago
    Youtube is 37% of all mobile traffic. [1] [1]- https://www.statista.com/chart/17321/global-downstream-mobile-traffic-by-app/ https://www.statista.com/chart/17321/global-downstream-mobil...
  - risho 6y ago
    that is still way WAY more than enough to justify it's utility.
  - bioipbiop 6y ago
    Even if it were only 5-10% of internet traffic, that’d be huge! Think about how much the internet has exploded in use since 2009.
  - CyberDildonics 6y ago
    You think that if something once took up 50% of all traffic on the internet it never found a practical application?
    - oblio 6y ago
      > proportionate to the attendant hype From the original comment. Also, just because it was 50% at some point, it doesn't really matter today. Paraphrasing, a technology is only as good as it's latest match result. Perl was once powering the web, nowadays you have to look at the web with an electronic microscope to find it...
      - pessimizer 6y ago
        This is silly. Are you actually saying that bittorrent was hyped so much that constituting half the internet was a letdown? And that Perl didn't live up to its hype because it's only common today, and not as universal as it once was?
        oblio 6y ago
        > This is silly. Are you actually saying that bittorrent was hyped so much that constituting half the internet was a letdown? My point is that it was a fad, it's barely used anymore and it was 50% in 2009, now its usage is much, much lower. I've seen a lot of statistics of streaming services being 20-30% of the internet each (Netflix, Youtube), so I'd be amazed if BitTorrent is more than 10% 2020 (and that's a very generous estimate), as I said previously. Anyway, it doesn't matter, there are a lot of techs that were super hyped and in the end, faded away. SOAP, CORBA, XML databases, semantic web techs (RDF, etc.), RSS, ... > And that Perl didn't live up to its hype because it's only common today, and not as universal as it once was? Perl is not common, it's uncommon. Let's say you're a developer in one of 100 big cities around the world, how likely it is for you to find a job developing Perl web apps? I'd say that in 80-90 of those, you can't even find that job. That's not a common tech in 2020 ;-)
        CyberDildonics 6y ago
- xibalba 6y ago
  Insofar as the majority of that traffic is likely illegal (in terms of sharing pirated property) I would not consider it useful.
  - liability 6y ago
    It's not legal, therefore it's not practical? That doesn't make any sense at all.
  - dtech 6y ago
    useful != legal
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - deathgrips 6y ago
    This falls apart when you examine prohibited goods. Guns are illegal in most countries because they are very useful.
    - d10r 6y ago
      Are they though? I'm 38 and can't remember a situation in my life where a gun would have been useful. Not saying that I can't imagine such situations, I just find it a slightly weird example to make this point.
      - deathgrips 6y ago
        I also don't think that a fishing pole is useful, but that's because I don't like to fish. With a gun I could * defend myself * rob you * murder you very effectively * enjoy target shooting * hunt wild game * provide peace of mind in troubled times when law and order break down The fewer guns there are per capita, the more useful they become for criminals. They are so useful, in fact, that people will spend a lot of money and subject themselves to costly and invasive regulations just to buy one gun. If no one found them useful, no one would find it necessary to ban them.
  - 6y ago
yepthatsreality 6y ago
Why...? BitTorrent has been influential in lots of applications. If you really need proof that BitTorrent can move milestones, it help perpetuate sites like thepiratebay.org and assisted in the advent of modern day streaming services that both the music and movie industry neglected for years. It is also a central influence for p2p networking and file sharing.
- oblio 6y ago
  Yeah, but it's not used anymore, from what I know. Few places use it for distribution, I guess they don't consider it worth the hassle. Blizzard was using it to distribute binaries. I guess mobile internet was its downfall as few people want to seed from a mobile connection.
  - armitron 6y ago
    There are vast data archives exposed through private trackers that work on top of bittorrent. This isn't widely known due to their private, invite-only (and in some cases, entirely closed) nature but the fact remains that these exist and are fundamental in multiple, widely divergent communities.
    - oblio 6y ago
      Can you give some examples? It all sounds very... mysterious. At least, what kind of content are we talking about?
      - bdekoz 6y ago
        A public example is rutracker.org. Another is sci-hub. See Joe Karaganis for some cannonical info: http://piracy.americanassembly.org/shadow-libraries/ http://piracy.americanassembly.org/shadow-libraries/
      - Avamander 6y ago
        There's also The Internet Archive that provides torrents that's in the clearnet.
oblio 6y ago
Well, both threaten the establishment. Blockchain would basically upend states, with unclear benefits. BitTorrent would allow for very efficient distribution of a lot of data, which can conflict with copyright. At least BitTorrent is environment friendly :-)
slim 6y ago
I estimate that thousands of people use torrent every day since 20 years. I use it very often. maybe it's just that nobody uses it in your close network
- Avamander 6y ago
  I estimate that a lot of people won't even know if they're using it. Especially if we take things like PopCorn Time into account.
luizfelberti 6y ago
You're delirious. Setting aside the fact that BitTorrent came about long before BitCoin was a glint in Satoshi's eye, it's still massively used for content distribution, on top of being a foundational technology to several industrial applications: Apache Spark, for example, uses BitTorrent to shuffle/broadcast data around cluster nodes. Even when BitTorrent alternatives are used in its place (such as IPFS, Dat, or Kademlia), BT was still a massive influence in all of their designs, and to the design of any other DHT that came about after its release. All of these, plus other systems that are (in abstract) similar constructions, have several industrial applications for asset distribution (Netflix uses IPFS to distribute container images internally [0], Uber and Alibaba do similar things) and network management (DNS for example, is really just a DHT, as are several other network protocols) Ever since BitTorrent came about, it has unequivocally been a resounding success. It never for a moment had to look for applications, there were already plenty since day one. [0] https://blog.ipfs.io/2020-02-14-improved-bitswap-for-container-distribution/ https://blog.ipfs.io/2020-02-14-improved-bitswap-for-contain...
- thawaway1837 6y ago
  Wasn’t the original Skype that Microsoft paid billions for also based on BitTorrent technology? Not BitTorrent exactly, but close enough that if the blockchain spinoff was bought for that much the blockchain folks would certainly consider (rightfully IMO) a victory in the blockchain column.
  - wmf 6y ago
    Skype was based on JoltID/Kazaa.
- oblio 6y ago
  > it's still massively used for content distribution Is it, though? Youtube doesn't use it, neither do Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Spotify, etc. Does anybody (except for Blizzard) use it? I don't think Steam or the Epic store or the App Store or the Play Store use it, either. I'd be extremely glad to be proven wrong.

mawalu 6y ago

You mean beside being responsible for ~50% of the global internet traffic in 2009? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent

oblio 6y ago
Yeah, but what's the current number? I'd be surprised if it were more than 5-10% these days. 2009 was 11 years ago, the internet was a much smaller and less regulated place.
- ffpip 6y ago
  Youtube is 37% of all mobile traffic. [1] [1]- https://www.statista.com/chart/17321/global-downstream-mobile-traffic-by-app/ https://www.statista.com/chart/17321/global-downstream-mobil...
- risho 6y ago
  that is still way WAY more than enough to justify it's utility.
- bioipbiop 6y ago
  Even if it were only 5-10% of internet traffic, that’d be huge! Think about how much the internet has exploded in use since 2009.
- CyberDildonics 6y ago
  You think that if something once took up 50% of all traffic on the internet it never found a practical application?
  - oblio 6y ago
    > proportionate to the attendant hype From the original comment. Also, just because it was 50% at some point, it doesn't really matter today. Paraphrasing, a technology is only as good as it's latest match result. Perl was once powering the web, nowadays you have to look at the web with an electronic microscope to find it...
    - pessimizer 6y ago
      This is silly. Are you actually saying that bittorrent was hyped so much that constituting half the internet was a letdown? And that Perl didn't live up to its hype because it's only common today, and not as universal as it once was?
      - oblio 6y ago
        > This is silly. Are you actually saying that bittorrent was hyped so much that constituting half the internet was a letdown? My point is that it was a fad, it's barely used anymore and it was 50% in 2009, now its usage is much, much lower. I've seen a lot of statistics of streaming services being 20-30% of the internet each (Netflix, Youtube), so I'd be amazed if BitTorrent is more than 10% 2020 (and that's a very generous estimate), as I said previously. Anyway, it doesn't matter, there are a lot of techs that were super hyped and in the end, faded away. SOAP, CORBA, XML databases, semantic web techs (RDF, etc.), RSS, ... > And that Perl didn't live up to its hype because it's only common today, and not as universal as it once was? Perl is not common, it's uncommon. Let's say you're a developer in one of 100 big cities around the world, how likely it is for you to find a job developing Perl web apps? I'd say that in 80-90 of those, you can't even find that job. That's not a common tech in 2020 ;-)
        CyberDildonics 6y ago
xibalba 6y ago
Insofar as the majority of that traffic is likely illegal (in terms of sharing pirated property) I would not consider it useful.
- liability 6y ago
  It's not legal, therefore it's not practical? That doesn't make any sense at all.
- dtech 6y ago
  useful != legal
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- deathgrips 6y ago
  This falls apart when you examine prohibited goods. Guns are illegal in most countries because they are very useful.
  - d10r 6y ago
    Are they though? I'm 38 and can't remember a situation in my life where a gun would have been useful. Not saying that I can't imagine such situations, I just find it a slightly weird example to make this point.
    - deathgrips 6y ago
      I also don't think that a fishing pole is useful, but that's because I don't like to fish. With a gun I could * defend myself * rob you * murder you very effectively * enjoy target shooting * hunt wild game * provide peace of mind in troubled times when law and order break down The fewer guns there are per capita, the more useful they become for criminals. They are so useful, in fact, that people will spend a lot of money and subject themselves to costly and invasive regulations just to buy one gun. If no one found them useful, no one would find it necessary to ban them.
- 6y ago

yepthatsreality 6y ago

Why...? BitTorrent has been influential in lots of applications. If you really need proof that BitTorrent can move milestones, it help perpetuate sites like thepiratebay.org and assisted in the advent of modern day streaming services that both the music and movie industry neglected for years. It is also a central influence for p2p networking and file sharing.

oblio 6y ago
Yeah, but it's not used anymore, from what I know. Few places use it for distribution, I guess they don't consider it worth the hassle. Blizzard was using it to distribute binaries. I guess mobile internet was its downfall as few people want to seed from a mobile connection.
- armitron 6y ago
  There are vast data archives exposed through private trackers that work on top of bittorrent. This isn't widely known due to their private, invite-only (and in some cases, entirely closed) nature but the fact remains that these exist and are fundamental in multiple, widely divergent communities.
  - oblio 6y ago
    Can you give some examples? It all sounds very... mysterious. At least, what kind of content are we talking about?
    - bdekoz 6y ago
      A public example is rutracker.org. Another is sci-hub. See Joe Karaganis for some cannonical info: http://piracy.americanassembly.org/shadow-libraries/ http://piracy.americanassembly.org/shadow-libraries/
    - Avamander 6y ago
      There's also The Internet Archive that provides torrents that's in the clearnet.

oblio 6y ago

Well, both threaten the establishment. Blockchain would basically upend states, with unclear benefits. BitTorrent would allow for very efficient distribution of a lot of data, which can conflict with copyright. At least BitTorrent is environment friendly :-)

slim 6y ago

I estimate that thousands of people use torrent every day since 20 years. I use it very often. maybe it's just that nobody uses it in your close network

Avamander 6y ago
I estimate that a lot of people won't even know if they're using it. Especially if we take things like PopCorn Time into account.

luizfelberti 6y ago

You're delirious. Setting aside the fact that BitTorrent came about long before BitCoin was a glint in Satoshi's eye, it's still massively used for content distribution, on top of being a foundational technology to several industrial applications: Apache Spark, for example, uses BitTorrent to shuffle/broadcast data around cluster nodes. Even when BitTorrent alternatives are used in its place (such as IPFS, Dat, or Kademlia), BT was still a massive influence in all of their designs, and to the design of any other DHT that came about after its release. All of these, plus other systems that are (in abstract) similar constructions, have several industrial applications for asset distribution (Netflix uses IPFS to distribute container images internally [0], Uber and Alibaba do similar things) and network management (DNS for example, is really just a DHT, as are several other network protocols) Ever since BitTorrent came about, it has unequivocally been a resounding success. It never for a moment had to look for applications, there were already plenty since day one. [0] https://blog.ipfs.io/2020-02-14-improved-bitswap-for-container-distribution/ https://blog.ipfs.io/2020-02-14-improved-bitswap-for-contain...

thawaway1837 6y ago
Wasn’t the original Skype that Microsoft paid billions for also based on BitTorrent technology? Not BitTorrent exactly, but close enough that if the blockchain spinoff was bought for that much the blockchain folks would certainly consider (rightfully IMO) a victory in the blockchain column.
- wmf 6y ago
  Skype was based on JoltID/Kazaa.
oblio 6y ago
> it's still massively used for content distribution Is it, though? Youtube doesn't use it, neither do Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Spotify, etc. Does anybody (except for Blizzard) use it? I don't think Steam or the Epic store or the App Store or the Play Store use it, either. I'd be extremely glad to be proven wrong.