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Well. Their main audience was pirates. A group of people that dislike being bothered by intrusive ads, dislike the threats to their privacy that ads pose, and p

Well. Their main audience was pirates. A group of people that dislike being bothered by intrusive ads, dislike the threats to their privacy that ads pose, and prefers to not pay for access to files because information should be free, or at least prefers to pay as little as possible for access. It’s kind of a wonder that Zippyshare lasted for so long actually. At least they outlived both the original MegaUpload and the original RapidShare. > RapidShare was an online file hosting service that opened in 2002. In 2009, it was among the Internet's 20 most visited websites and claimed to have 10 petabytes of files uploaded by users with the ability to handle up to three million users simultaneously. Following the takedown of similar service Megaupload in 2012, RapidShare changed its business model to deter the use of its services for distribution of files to large numbers of anonymous users and to focus on personal subscription-only cloud-based file storage. Its popularity fell sharply as a result and, by the end of March 2015, RapidShare ceased to operate and it is defunct. As of 2017, Rapidshare AG was acquired by Kingsley Global. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RapidShare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RapidShare

MuffinFlavored 4y ago
> A group of people that dislike being bothered by intrusive ads I wonder what percentage of the 45m (unique?) visitors a month had an adblocker of some sort on.
- m-p-3 4y ago
  I don't have any hard numbers, but I would assume that their userbase was significantly tech-savvy compared to the general population, so the percentage of visitors using an adblocker would have been higher as well.
shanebellone 4y ago
"Well. Their main audience was pirates. A group of people that dislike being bothered by intrusive ads, dislike the threats to their privacy that ads pose, and prefers to not pay for access to files because information should be free, or at least prefers to pay as little as possible for access." *thieves
- HeckFeck 4y ago
  Theft is a difficult charge to lay when it is a replication; a result of memcpy'ing something from one location to another. It might be something else, but it isn't the same as nicking your car keys or tunic.
  - somat 4y ago
    Exactly, the crime is infringement, it is not theft, and it certainly is not piracy. On the subject of the term piracy, if you are going to pick a heinous crime to represent your infringement, you might as well call it software rape, it is closer to what you are actually doing.
    - StrictDabbler 4y ago
      The term "piracy" has been in use to describe copyright infringement since at least 1736. Three centuries should be enough that we aren't "picking a crime to represent your infringement" anymore. It's just a valid word for the thing.
  - supriyo-biswas 4y ago
    By this logic killing someone is simply a movement of physical matter from one place to another (knives, bullets), followed by some more movement of physical matter from one place to another (loss of blood/organs etc.) Things hold more value than simply being a sum of its parts.
    - skeaker 4y ago
      How do you figure? I think it's fairly obvious where the distinction is from stealing (the original owner no longer has their property) and copying (the original owner still has their property). The murder analogy you laid out doesn't seem to track with that at all.
      - supriyo-biswas 4y ago
sohtym 4y ago
It was specifically popular because it was free. There are other similar sites and also other services if you are willing to pay.
tstrimple 4y ago
For me it's all about the access. I happily pay for Usenet access and indexers because it allows me to have a single interface for accessing all media. I don't have to play the guessing game of "which streaming service is this show / movie hosted on this month?". I just hop onto Sonarr or Radarr and it's on my NAS ready to stream in a few minutes. I still pay for Netflix and I get Disney for free from my cell phone plan so if it's outside of those I'll reach for Usenet.
MomoXenosaga 4y ago
Some repackers actually pay for dedicated seedboxes. There's Dodi for instance who by his own account pays $100 per month keeping games up. I pay for a seedbox myself.

MuffinFlavored 4y ago

> A group of people that dislike being bothered by intrusive ads I wonder what percentage of the 45m (unique?) visitors a month had an adblocker of some sort on.

m-p-3 4y ago
I don't have any hard numbers, but I would assume that their userbase was significantly tech-savvy compared to the general population, so the percentage of visitors using an adblocker would have been higher as well.

shanebellone 4y ago

"Well. Their main audience was pirates. A group of people that dislike being bothered by intrusive ads, dislike the threats to their privacy that ads pose, and prefers to not pay for access to files because information should be free, or at least prefers to pay as little as possible for access." *thieves

HeckFeck 4y ago
Theft is a difficult charge to lay when it is a replication; a result of memcpy'ing something from one location to another. It might be something else, but it isn't the same as nicking your car keys or tunic.
- somat 4y ago
  Exactly, the crime is infringement, it is not theft, and it certainly is not piracy. On the subject of the term piracy, if you are going to pick a heinous crime to represent your infringement, you might as well call it software rape, it is closer to what you are actually doing.
  - StrictDabbler 4y ago
    The term "piracy" has been in use to describe copyright infringement since at least 1736. Three centuries should be enough that we aren't "picking a crime to represent your infringement" anymore. It's just a valid word for the thing.
- supriyo-biswas 4y ago
  By this logic killing someone is simply a movement of physical matter from one place to another (knives, bullets), followed by some more movement of physical matter from one place to another (loss of blood/organs etc.) Things hold more value than simply being a sum of its parts.
  - skeaker 4y ago
    How do you figure? I think it's fairly obvious where the distinction is from stealing (the original owner no longer has their property) and copying (the original owner still has their property). The murder analogy you laid out doesn't seem to track with that at all.
    - supriyo-biswas 4y ago

sohtym 4y ago

It was specifically popular because it was free. There are other similar sites and also other services if you are willing to pay.

tstrimple 4y ago

For me it's all about the access. I happily pay for Usenet access and indexers because it allows me to have a single interface for accessing all media. I don't have to play the guessing game of "which streaming service is this show / movie hosted on this month?". I just hop onto Sonarr or Radarr and it's on my NAS ready to stream in a few minutes. I still pay for Netflix and I get Disney for free from my cell phone plan so if it's outside of those I'll reach for Usenet.

MomoXenosaga 4y ago

Some repackers actually pay for dedicated seedboxes. There's Dodi for instance who by his own account pays $100 per month keeping games up. I pay for a seedbox myself.