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That's all their claims. They were not able to show that they were losing or making money in court. There were no records, at all. However, they would have to

That's all their claims. They were not able to show that they were losing or making money in court. There were no records, at all. However, they would have to been incredibly incompetent not to make millions off the advertisment, based on their amount of traffic. This was key in the procedings. I mean.. right now thepiratebay.se is at top 90 in the alexa ranking. More traffic than e.g. nytimes.com, ebay.co.uk, redtube.com, dailymail.co.uk, etc etc. Meanwhile, the hosting cost for this service is comparatively extremely small. Saw some list recently of 20 servers. Perhaps true, but seems inefficient. Still, at that level, peanuts compared to the ad revenue.

dwild 12y ago
The issue is the provenance of the ads, there's way more ad publisher interested in nytimes, ebay, etc... it's even worse when you consider that people that surf piratebay probably use an ad blocker or won't be interested to buy any product. I have an hard time though to believe they would be losing money. How could they afford to keep it online at that scale if they had to use their own money.
- johansch 12y ago
  How does pornhub.com make money?
  - sp332 12y ago
    Well, they have a higher Alexa ranking than the Pirate Bay, so it's probably easier for them to get advertisers. Also they're a near-monopoly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindGeek https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindGeek On top of that, while porn may be objectionable to some advertisers' brands, it's still worlds better than the straight-up illegal content on the Pirate Bay.
  - dwild 12y ago
    There's a potential paying customer on a pornographic website, there's none on a illegal torrent tracker (or at least, there's less). There's always the possibility to advertise or sell live stream, access to other pornographic website, etc... You never saw any pornographic ads on Pirate Bay? That's mostly the ads that I saw the last time I went there, but I wasn't searching for porn at all. I'm pretty sure though that people that goes to pornhub want porn, so theses ads should generate more profit on pornhub than on Pirate Bay. We could also talk about brand association, etc... but I hope you already understood how it's easier to make money out of porn comparatively to illegal torrent tracker.
- benologist 12y ago
  Considering they have a ton of ads being served this line of thinking is very unlikely, as they are clearly attracting advertisers who are spending money.
belorn 12y ago
Economics 101, things are only worth what others on the same market are willing to pay. Ask what market tpb advertisements are on. Is it more similar to those of nytimes, or to a spam network using botnets to send emails? A botnet that send spams can easily reach more eyeballs than any top 90 ranked website, and thanks to security researcher, we do actually have a good idea how much they earn. Unsurprisingly, its far far less than a nytimes.com makes per eyeball. What people are willing to advertise on tpb, and what are the competitor on that market. My guess: spam networks. based on that, revenue from tpb is going to be very similar to the hosting cost, or even below that.

dwild 12y ago

The issue is the provenance of the ads, there's way more ad publisher interested in nytimes, ebay, etc... it's even worse when you consider that people that surf piratebay probably use an ad blocker or won't be interested to buy any product. I have an hard time though to believe they would be losing money. How could they afford to keep it online at that scale if they had to use their own money.

johansch 12y ago
How does pornhub.com make money?
- sp332 12y ago
  Well, they have a higher Alexa ranking than the Pirate Bay, so it's probably easier for them to get advertisers. Also they're a near-monopoly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindGeek https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindGeek On top of that, while porn may be objectionable to some advertisers' brands, it's still worlds better than the straight-up illegal content on the Pirate Bay.
- dwild 12y ago
  There's a potential paying customer on a pornographic website, there's none on a illegal torrent tracker (or at least, there's less). There's always the possibility to advertise or sell live stream, access to other pornographic website, etc... You never saw any pornographic ads on Pirate Bay? That's mostly the ads that I saw the last time I went there, but I wasn't searching for porn at all. I'm pretty sure though that people that goes to pornhub want porn, so theses ads should generate more profit on pornhub than on Pirate Bay. We could also talk about brand association, etc... but I hope you already understood how it's easier to make money out of porn comparatively to illegal torrent tracker.
benologist 12y ago
Considering they have a ton of ads being served this line of thinking is very unlikely, as they are clearly attracting advertisers who are spending money.

belorn 12y ago

Economics 101, things are only worth what others on the same market are willing to pay. Ask what market tpb advertisements are on. Is it more similar to those of nytimes, or to a spam network using botnets to send emails? A botnet that send spams can easily reach more eyeballs than any top 90 ranked website, and thanks to security researcher, we do actually have a good idea how much they earn. Unsurprisingly, its far far less than a nytimes.com makes per eyeball. What people are willing to advertise on tpb, and what are the competitor on that market. My guess: spam networks. based on that, revenue from tpb is going to be very similar to the hosting cost, or even below that.