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> am reminded of the P2P/decentralized nature of Napster and how it was going to be a revolution Torrents still account for a massive share of internet traffi
by moolcool 5y ago
> am reminded of the P2P/decentralized nature of Napster and how it was going to be a revolution
Torrents still account for a massive share of internet traffic. Furthermore, I think it's reductive to just consider it a tool for piracy. Blizzard uses (used?) BitTorrent in their game launcher to alleviate server costs. Not to mention that a lot of bittorrent traffic lives in the fuzzy area of sharing lost media and abandonware. Gabe Newell famously referred to piracy as a service problem, and the success of services like Spotify, Steam and Netflix undoubtedly prove that to some extent. Like yes, the easiest way to dive into the Disney back catalog is through Disney+, but there's also Disney content which, for various reasons, you can't access through the service but still has historical value.
- TheProbes 5y agoI think that the main problem with this logic is that Bittorrent is a tech designed to illegally distribute a consumer good, ie a movie. Once the movie has made it's final stop, your eyeballs, that's it. It's been consumed. Cryptocurrency only has value if you can sell it on to someone else, and it's value is entirely dependent on what value you think you will be able to sell it for. Once the number starts to go down as fiat on/off ramps start to get squeezed, it will be come much much less attractive to everyone, including, and maybe especially, to criminals. It only have value to them currently because they can store value in it and exchange it for fiat with non-criminals. If it becomes criminalized everywhere, and their only option is exchanging it with other criminals......well. It's not the same as Bittorrent is it?