Ask: why are there are no file sharing startups? | Hacker News Reader

Ask: why are there are no file sharing startups?

11 pointshenning16 comments

If you genuinely want to make something people want, observe that file sharing clients like eMule and uTorrent have tens or even hundreds of millions of downloads. They actually make even the biggest Web 2.0 services like Flickr look small in comparison.

People will put up with bad interfaces and installing desktop software if it gets them what they want in a new, faster way. This has been proved several times since Napster arrived.

So why not make a better BitTorrent or something?

Oh, and I know Bram Cohen's company took money, and there are online services for transferring large files around, but as far as I know that's about it.

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copywrite,riaa,mpaa,mafiaa

If you think about most content out how much is owned by the creators?

I say you should make the next bittorrent, if it becomes successful you'll have armies of lawyers saying your the pirate even though you just created a way to file transfer.

Yeah, there were dozens of companies like you describe in the wake of Napster. The lawyers laid waste to the field.

We're working on an open-source distributed storage system that can also be used to easily share files. It also has p2p streaming download which is kind of fun to use. http://allmydata.org

I should add that we are not focusing on file-sharing. Our commercial model (.com) is based upon managed backup services. When we looked at the possibility of file-sharing as a service, we were quickly dissuaded by the amount of potential litigation we could face.

FilePhile is one.

http://www.filephile.net/

SpiderOak http://spideroak.com isn't specifically a filesharing system, but you can share your backed up files.

Miro is debatably a startup working in file sharing.

Wasn't there one that was putting in a PPP client as a firefox extension?

What ever happened to them?

All Peers (http://www.allpeers.com/) is probably the FF extension you're thinking about.

It was, good find.

AllPeers has folded, sadly:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080303-alack-of-peers...

You mean "P2P client".

http://www.pando.com/

Might wanna keep an eye on Reble.fm

Joost?

file.io ?

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