September 10, 2003
Why BitTorrent is destined to fail.
Or put more positively, why it will succeed only on a small scale.
BitTorrent, for those that don't know, is a P2P application which you can use to download any file offered by someone with a BT server. The power of BT is that everyone who is downloading contributes to and shares from the collective bandwidth of everyone else currently downloading the same file(s). Even after downloading the file, if you keep the file active, you continue to contribute. This can also be it's downfall.
Yesterday afternoon, for example, I started a download of a live Phish show. A total download of over 900 megabytes. Right off the bat my download speed was a blazing 90kb/s and there were over 25 others downloading the show along with me.
Two hours later only 9 people remained on the download, and my speed had dropped to 9kb/s. Another couple hours later there were only two people still connected.
So, it seems that while speeds were blazing, people hopped on, got the show, and hopped off. Leaving the rest of us who didn't get on so early to struggle through the rest of the download without the assistance of their plentiful bandwidth.
You can see how the value in this P2P model depends on the the collective kindness of the community. Others must, after they have gotten what they came for, give up additional bandwidth (and computer performance, as BT is a resource-hog) for others to use. This, as you can also see from the above, is not something people are so keen to do.
That said, I have currently been downloading a Grateful Dead show with speeds averaging above 90kb/s the whole time. (I'm not trying to contrast the two music communities, but are Dead fans just more altruistic than Phish fans? Maybe just older with longer attention spans.)
Another serious pitfall of BT is that the original source files are taken offline relatively soon after they become available. With FTP, the person running the server simply has to have the FTP server running in the background and have the files residing where FTP users can get to them. With BT, the server admin must actively keep the file in a sort of "state of upload." That is, even if the file remains on the admin's drive forever, if he doesn't have the BT server actively serving that particular file, no one can get to it.
In the world of online music sharing on BT, shows are usually only available for about 2 weeks. It's good for initially getting the files distributed to a few, but not good for providing long-term access to the masses.
This again, is relying on people to take an active role in sharing the files. However, sharing is not something people would do after downloading a file via FTP or the like anyway. With BT, they are at least helping others whether they want to or not while they are downloading the file.
BT, while it is a truly forward-thinking technology, is not ideal. It relies too much on a Utopian model to flourish long-term. Communism doesn't work on the Internet either, I guess.
Disclaimer: I am a huge user and, in current practice, a huge fan of BitTorrent. I have downloaded tens of gigabytes of live music using it, and I hope that I will continue to be able to do so for as long as possible.
I, by the way, am no leech either. I not only leave my downloads open well after I have gotten the complete show, but I also help seed shows through the denance.net BitTorrent server.
Posted by jtnt at September 10, 2003 11:34 PM in Technology
The key to make the torrent system work is large files... the bigger the better.
Instead of posting .."Pink Floyd - The Wall" post
"The entire collection of pink floyd ever made".
Then you force the people downloading to stay on.
I'm gonna have to disagree with you pal. The etree community as a whole is a good example of how community kindness can push a project to success. People share music and get music. It might not be a one to one ratio of giving to getting, but does that mean its a failure? Your discussion also begs the question, what is the success criteria of something like BitTorrent? Some people might say a 1 to 1 ratio of uploaded to downloaded bytes. Some might say 2 to 1 is more fair. You might see people hop off a torrent "early" but this might be because they have met their ratio.
You contniue to say "However, sharing is not something people would do after downloading a file via FTP or the like anyway." That is also not true. In the etrade@ mailing list alone, how many posts do you see about b&ps and freebies. These are examples of folks downloading via ftp and sharing. You might not see as many posts as you like, but it still happens quite a bit.
And finally, the ultimate example of pessimism is the statement "It relies too much on a Utopian model to flourish long-term". Isn't that what the music trading community relies on at the very core to continue? Folks volunteering time, money and effort to tape and transfer shows. Folks volunteering time, money, and bandwidth to share shows.
Just one man's opinion