I own two copies of this game, From Dust (which is fantastic, by the creator of Another World), one of them on disc and one of them on Steam, separate keys.
I installed it from Steam because I don't have an optical drive handy and the key is not on the case for some reason. So the game makes me sign up for a UPlay account (in addition to having the Steam stuff), which apparently I did in the past, and not with my primary email. So I can't play because it's already activated... and installing it from Steam doesn't tell UPlay that I own it on Steam.
So then I go and email Ubisoft tech support and say I have this key and haven't played in 5 years how can I swap it over to my new email.
A day later I get a reply that they want me to go screenshot my transaction history and my CD Key (which I already sent them) in the Steam UI.
...meanwhile, I was able to download ("pirate") and install the game in 5 minutes, and it doesn't require either the Steam or the Uplay account to work. AND it'll keep on working 50 years after Steam and Ubisoft are both bankrupt (or keep working on your OS/vm/whatever when Steam and Ubisoft discontinue support for it).
So yeah, there's a use for bittorrent & piracy, since DRM ruins your ability to archive any-damn-thing now. Without bittorrent, playing that game would be a terrible ordeal, if it is even possible at all. Paying for it (twice) only made it worse.
You do lose the save game/cloud sync, but you gain copies of your game that will always work without needing to verify your licence over the Interwebs.
I've been griping lately that Humble Bundle seems increasingly watering down their principles. Early Humble Bundle made it a big deal that they always included DRM free copies and more often than not full soundtracks or soundtracks at a discount. Today's Humble Bundle seems much more and more to "just" be a Steam Key reseller, without DRM free copies of many games, and without access to nearly as large of a percentage of game soundtracks.
(I realize that last is a weird gripe, but there were a lot of games I picked up for their soundtracks because of artists I enjoyed, and sometimes I'd be surprised and really enjoy the associated game, but even if I didn't like the game I still got my money's worth from the soundtrack. I've now switched to buying from the artists more often directly from Bandcamp and rarely if ever buying the associated games, or just waiting for a direct Steam or Microsoft Store sale.)
It certainly feels from Humble's emails that they are very deeply focused on their Monthly Pass, and it feels almost to the detriment of everything else, but then Monthly Pass things don't really appeal to me in general.
The advantage here is that the protocol itself will incentivise people to seed instead of doing a hit & run, and will thus increase the value of the network.
Not sure it will work, but the experiment is interesting.
It's as if they saw a drop in piracy and asked themselves how to make it rise again.
Yes people need bittorrent, first of all "cheap" is subjective, not everybody can afford to pay each month to watch movies/series and listen to music. Then there is a limit to what can offer Netflix or Amazon for example: I love movies and I watch a lot of them at the theater and at home but I can't find any Cronenberg's or Lynch's (yes I like Davids) movies on Netflix/Amazon. Even finding them on DVD/Bluray is difficult sometimes even with classics.
And there I am talking only about big directors movies, I am french and watch a lot of french movies but when I try to find old ones or just some with low budget it is nearly impossible besides torrents.
So yes we need bittorent/stremio but I wish we don't and that culture will be available to everyone someday.
This scenario already exists with netflix, you now have to have netflix, amazon prime, hulu, youtube premium and whatever disney's new streaming service will be called. Because each contains their own exclusives, and with some cases they won't contain the same products forever.
So now you have to juggle between different apps to get whatever media you're trying to access. As for bittorrent, if you're tech literate, you can setup an automatic downloading/streaming setup in 1-2 afternoons and have all the stuff you want, in one place, forever, at the low cost of $25 per terabyte.
When it's about music/video, although I still listen/watch Spotify/Netflix, I actually prefer to have the tunes I love stored in bare audio files, DRM-free, and play them without using an Internet connection, I also prefer to watch movies on my non-smart internet-detached TV by just putting them on a USB flash drive. But I hardly ever download music or videos from BitTorrent actually (although I have indeed downloaded rips of some albums I have legitimately bought on CDs in the past), BitTorrent is not only about pirating this kind of content. I also doubt there would be much progress in ease of access and affordability in the recording industry without competition with the file-sharing world.
Covering just the "evil, bad" piracy angle: very much yes. If you're not in the US, you can usually stream some small subset of movies and TV shows, often months after their release (which means you've missed out on participating in global comentary, which happens immediately after release). Then, streaming services like to remove titles at random, without notice. So the movie you streamed legally last year and want to show to your SO today might no longer be available (happens to me frequently with Netflix).
And about a few hundreds of other services worldwide with each their silos. Even for Netflix or Amazon Prime, it’s not the same catalog in the different regions they’re supported.
It’s of course made worse by the fact that any new entrant needs exclusives to lure people in, so every new service comes with its new silo.
It’s still a huge mess with no simple way to watch something legally from a simple search, even with a credit card in hand.
Music has become better (still super messy, spotify/apple music/Google cover a huge base, but it’s still only a fraction of what’s commercially sold in my experience)
I don't know how this can be solved, but at present whilst there is definitely more than enough good tv content to keep me happy, there are definitely still holes and edge cases.
That said, this all sounds like a way to monetise piracy using cryptocurrency, not something I'd want to encourage.
(Spotify basically took over all music listening years ago, I no longer bother adding to my own collection, bar very infrequent CD purchases for some of my very favourite bands)
Only until we have implementations of anonymous private and metadata resistant DHTshttps://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=18111479