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Comment by homakov | Hacker News Reader

I can routinely download any torrent in the world on top speed... What problem does it solve?

Torrents, as a poor choice for the "killer app", aside, state channels are a curious technology but most traditional implementations [fully pre-collateralized channels] have a design flaw where no one wants to put money to the end user, while happily accepting inward capacity from the senders. Haven't looked into this specific implementation, i wonder if it has a fix for this. "Virtual channels" sound relevant here.

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Can you? What about these countless "0 seeders" rare materials which never start or stop forever at 90% mark?

Didn't experience this problem much.

If not found on any tracker, such a material is probably too rare for anyone to care about. Even with some monetization model in place, it would be unrealistic to keep all sorts of "rare" materials in the world to make $1 from a random stranger coming once a year.

Anyway, I would't pay $1

Rare materials are what made some trackers great. Remember what.cd? That was the most comprehensive music catalogue ever. And it worked.

Also, there's the issue of people finding rare source materials, but keeping them to themselves, because sharing is a hassle. Monetization would help incentivize these people.

I think this technology is spot on for private trackers. The token used doesnt need a monetary value. It's not about monetizing per se, its more gamifying seeding. Indeed, terms like «ratio-economy» is already widely used about the seed-what-you-use model most private trackers use. Im already paying for my downloaded bits, Im just not paying money - i pay with my ratio.

Okay than just my two cents. I use torrents a lot and never had a problem finding what i needed, and i would certainly not pay a dime for some obscure per-bite streaming. Not in torrents.

Private trackers may have free entry but cost money in other ways. It's not easy to get buffer on a home connection. I have probably spent $200 on my seedbox over the years. Pay-per-bite sounds a lot cheaper in contrast.

In context of the US maybe it is different. Mine is 200mbit/s no caps $7/mo connection - common in Moscow - and I don’t remember caring about traffic or speed ever. Any torrents with 5+ seeds is like whoooosh and it’s done.

I've had plenty of problems, especially more obscure material or material not in english/russian is often just plain not available. In one case, I needed an older version of knoppix not available on their website anymore but I had a torrent file. The download took 3 months to complete due to the single seeder of that file going offline for that time.

If you only download the popular fresh content like the latest Debian ISO or something like that, of course you never have problems.

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