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What about torrents? Those have been around forever, and I just downloaded Gimp over one instead of using their server's bandwidth.

Maybe they're talking purely about dollar value, but I'd say more useful information has been passed back and forth with torrents.

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Yes, bittorrent is a much better example of a scalable decentralized system. The problem with bittorrent is that no one has come up with a good way to monetize it. What makes bitcoin exceptional among decentralized systems is not its scalability, but rather its ability to make people rich.

>The problem with bittorrent is that no one has come up with a good way to monetize it.

That decentralized software aligns much easier with commons than with markets is something that I would consider a feature, not a bug.

Imagine if the database of what.cd has been distributed as well.

We’d definitely have the most comprehensive and accurate catalogue of the musical output of humanity ever created.

Instead now we have Spotify and Apple Music. We’ve only scratched the surface of the good that torrent technology can do.

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