Comment by ericdykstra
7 years ago
Lots of private torrent sites are alive and kicking, and lots of open communities die. I'd need more evidence that openness vs closedness is what kills them.
7 years ago
Lots of private torrent sites are alive and kicking, and lots of open communities die. I'd need more evidence that openness vs closedness is what kills them.
Private torrent sites are hardly "private" in the same sense as being discussed here. They're private enough to legally defang the RIAA, but it's slightly more than trivial to gain access to any of them with even the slightest amount of savvy.
The "private" being discussed are much more exclusive.
Their forums are ghost towns. What.cd still doesn't have a successor, and one of three strong pretenders didn't even manage to stay online.
It may be caused more by competition from Spotifies and Netflixes than their closedness (although I don't agree) but they're certainly not alive and kicking.
$10 a month for more content than I know what to do with is such a cheap price to not have to deal with the pain of torrenting.
If it was $20 per DVD like in the past, the pain of torrenting was far less than the pain of the cost of buying your favorite movies.
I really think it's that simple. This value equation alone means that a majority of people won't care enough to go the extra length to participate in torrent communities. They'll just pay a small $10 a month to watch whatever they want, whenever they want, on any device, anywhere. That'll kill the incentive right from the start.
> They'll just pay a small $10 a month to watch whatever they want, whenever they want, on any device, anywhere.
Unfortunately this doesnt exist. I would gladly pay it. Netflix isnt it either, no matter how much they pretend they have all the content, the movies which I am interested in, I have to torrent, because they simply arent on netflix. Their library is so bad that my first instinct is "oh lets look for a torrent" instead of "lets check netflix if it has it" when I want to watch a movie.
If only the $10 a month would actually give you a good value for your money then I would gladly pay them $50 a month starting today.
- They mostly host newer movies and series. If you want something older, tough luck.
- Ads for other shows. Annoying. I can go to the recommended section if I want to. They should be opt-in, not opt-out. Not to mention the clunky UX to turn them off (and I am pretty sure that's by design so less people opt out).
- Flaky connection sometimes -- and I have a gigabit link at home. Yes the internet is a complex graph and it might not be their fault, I know. That's fair but it's not my fault as well. And when I pay money I feel entitled to good service. The tech details are their problem, not mine.
Torr3nting is very often not done just because somebody is a scumbag and wants to see Brad Pitt go broke. T0rrenting many times is done because (a) you get the entire content and can later watch it anytime you wish, including repeteadly, without lags, buffering or quality drops, (b) because it gives you the option to watch offline when you are off the grid -- like I download gaming tournaments from Twitch and put them on my tablet, and (c) the paid services are not good enough.
Redacted is definitely the successor to What.cd.
Curious why you don't think redacted.ch is the successor to what.cd? I certainly wouldn't describe it as a "ghost town" or "not alive and kicking".
Also wondering what you think of the idea that what.cd may have been too big for a private tracker to exist sustainably?
Better discussion can typically be had on community engines than specialized forums these days, unless they are large and have a decently long history, e.g. bodybuilding.com, honda-tech.com, etc.
I'd guess most discussion in such places is probably meta. tech support, or non-tech support.