The "Death Of P2P" Is Relative, Possibly WrongRise in encryption makes P2P's trajectory hard to track... 01:45PM Thursday Oct 22 2009 by Karl Bodetags: Fileswapping · business · stats · world · networkingIn the past few weeks, two different Internet traffic studies from Cisco and Arbor networks have indicated that P2P's overall Internet capacity consumption is down. Or more accurately, that P2P's slice of the Internet capacity pie is starting to be dwarved by quickly growing video consumption. Cisco's study (which we covered yesterday) pretty clearly indicates this relativity, but Arbor's indicated that P2P traffic had " declined dramatically, leading to reports that P2P was "dying." Of course GigaOM (via Techdirt) notes this relativity, but there's something else in the piece that seems more pertinent: "We found overall average Internet traffic growing globally at 35-45 percent annually," he told me. "So the decline in P2P 'market share' is likely as much that P2P is not keeping pace with overall Internet growth as a decline in P2P traffic volumes." Labovitz said that Arbor doesn't feel as comfortable publishing absolute numbers of P2P traffic because of issues like encryption, but he still suspects that P2P may be dropping slightly even in those terms. In other words, Arbor indicates that as ISPs crack down harder on P2P use, more P2P users are using encryption and as such can't be tracked. That would seem to suggest the numbers may not only be relative -- they may be completely wrong.
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 Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO
| Content volume? I wonder if the P2P crowd is just not running out of things to download. There is a pretty large backlog of older stuff out there (say 60 years worth) to download, but once the community has downloaded all the older content then all that is left is the just released stuff. The volume of just released stuff is really insignificant when you compare it the volume of older content. | |
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RARPSL
join:1999-12-08
Suffern, NY
| Re: Content volume? said by Lazlow  :I wonder if the P2P crowd is just not running out of things to download. There is a pretty large backlog of older stuff out there (say 60 years worth) to download, but once the community has downloaded all the older content then all that is left is the just released stuff. The volume of just released stuff is really insignificant when you compare it the volume of older content. Your analysis assumes that there is a constant number of users of P2P and that every user will download what they want as it becomes available. Thus the "old" backlog will be downloaded by those who want it and then no longer be downloaded any more. Since the number of P2P users can increase (and it takes time to get all the "old" files you want) the number of accesses to the backlog may not decrease due to new P2P users wanting it as all users not having acquired all the backlogged files they want. There is also the issue that for the file to be available, SOMEONE must be seeding it and the number of seeds for backlogged files is not a constant (thus some files come, go, and return as available). | |
| | | Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO
| Re: Content volume? But P2P has been around for a few years. While a significant number of young people are just discovering it , the majority of people (adults and quick uptake younger people) have already been using P2P for quite a while. The same goes for the files, most of the older content has been available (multiple times) to the majority of P2P users. I am not saying that new users (young and old) will not download the older content nor I am saying that some of the long term users have not missed some older content. I am just saying that the majority of P2P users have(probably) downloaded the majority of older content(that they are interested in). | |
| | | | | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY | 1 click hosting What about the rise of 1 click hosting (rapidshare, etc)?
Thats just HTTP traffic, not P2P.  | |
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Oinktastic
join:2005-08-24
Scarborough
 ·TekSavvy Solutions..
 ·3 Web
1 edit | Re: 1 click hosting Exactly. That's one of the reasons people give for the decline in P2P; downloaders just find other sources.
P2P is a great technology, but since most home connections aren't meant for uploading, it's not as useful as it could be. Plus, with all the BitTorrent throttling now, it's easier to just use other sources for transferring files.
Of course BT is on the decline, it's no longer the easiest method. However, I would bet almost anything that media and illegal downloads are constantly on the rise. Throttling has done nothing to prevent either of those things from happening.
Furthermore, now that legal downloads for decent prices are finally (however slowly) beginning to become available, people are actually willing to pay for this type of entertainment again. | |
| thevorpal
join:2007-11-16
Alexandria, VA
| Legal content is now viable Only a few years ago, if you wanted to watch a movie/song/show online, your options were pretty much limited to finding a torrent of that item.
Now that services like Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, Last.FM and other content delivery services people have a legitimate and cost appropriate source to acquire the content.
As the studios get dragged into the digital distribution model, and actually start offering their content to people on-demand, you are going to see p2p traffic drop even further.
Give the people the option to download files legally, and don't be surprised if they actually take it. | |
| | 
james
join:2001-02-26
antarctica
| Re: Legal content is now viable said by thevorpal :Only a few years ago, if you wanted to watch a movie/song/show online, your options were pretty much limited to finding a torrent of that item. That's not even close to true. Where do you think people got their warez before Bittorrent? Or are you under the impression that piracy didnt happen until BT came along?
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said by Metatron2008 :But people who download thousands of movies and games.... Yes, they are as bad as any murderer | |
| | | axiomatic
join:2006-08-23
Tomball, TX
| Re: Legal content is now viable agreed.
private 30 day usenet server backups like Easynews are still very popular and far safer to WAREZ surf with.
I just dont have the time for it anymore, but all the other vectors for these types of needs are all still there and still very popular. | |
| | | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
| said by james :That's not even close to true. Where do you think people got their warez before Bittorrent? Or are you under the impression that piracy didnt happen until BT came along? So where was it?
I think Kazaa, and Gnutella network to a smaller degree where the generation before bittorrent. In my opinion I can't decide if bittorrent was the successor to Kazaa or eMule was. Before Kazaa and Gnutella, we had Napster. Before Napster we had underground world IRC and underground FTP, both of which you were lucky to ever find, or find a password for. Somewhere WinMX belongs in the mix I think. | |
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Cthen
join:2004-08-01
Ypsilanti, MI
·Comcast
| Re: Legal content is now viable Don't forget the early days of the old http method with links of multiple .rar or .zip files. Before any sharing client came about this was the way of getting warez.
Some one would sign up for hundreds of free web hosting accounts for the bit of free space it gave, then take a huge piece of warez broken into small .rar or .zip files, upload them to all the accounts, and then post the links to them on one site together. The downloaders would get all the files one at a time, then extract them all to one folder to put it all together.
Seems like it's getting back to that now just with a much larger space to store the warez and with only one huge file to download from one location.
--
"I like to refer to myself as an Adult Film Efficienato." - Stuart Bondek | |
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james
join:2001-02-26
antarctica
| said by patcat88 :So where was it? Are you serious? How about newsgroups, websites with links to RAR files spread across 5 geocities websites...
said by patcat88 :Before Napster we had underground world IRC and underground FTP, both of which you were lucky to ever find, or find a password for. You have to be joking about the "underground" world of IRC and FTP. Sure, you had to not be a retard if you wanted to find how to connect or where to get the password, but it was all information that was publically available for those who took 10 minutes to look. I liked that alot, kept the idiots out.
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said by Metatron2008 :But people who download thousands of movies and games.... Yes, they are as bad as any murderer | |
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elios
join:2005-11-15
Springfield, MO | IRC is still around you know have to know were the ones that stuck it out are still there  | |
| | | zipjay
join:2003-03-11
Louisville, KY | ah the good ol days.. before even napster came along.. besides newsgroups the only way you could get mp3s was through irc hosting bots | |
| | | | | | | thevorpal
join:2007-11-16
Alexandria, VA
| said by james :That's not even close to true. Where do you think people got their warez before Bittorrent? Or are you under the impression that piracy didnt happen until BT came along? You completely missed the point.
Up until a few years ago, there was no legal digital option for most products. Your options were:
A. Pirate it.
B. Buy a physical copy, rip it, and archive it.
My point is there is now a third option:
C. Buy or access a legal digital version. (itunes, hulu, amazon, netflix, pandora, etc)
The point was that C didn't exist as a viable option until quite recently.
My point is that now that there is an option C, some people who used to rely on option A may have moved to option C thus explaining the decrease in P2P traffic. | |
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james
join:2001-02-26
antarctica
| Re: Legal content is now viable said by thevorpal :You completely missed the point. You just don't know how to express yourself properly.
You said torrents were the only way to get warez. I pointed out that what you were saying was incorrect.
Perhaps you should have said people were limited to pirated sources if they wanted to watch online.
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said by Metatron2008 :But people who download thousands of movies and games.... Yes, they are as bad as any murderer | |
| | Kearnstd
Elf Wizard
Premium
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ
| websites that took digging to find as well.
but the OP does somewhat have a point, more and more content has been made available online. TV shows especially via Hulu and Fancast. of course downloading TV shows was always a gray area anyway.
yet a continued major hole in downloadable content is still out of print movies. illegal is the only way unless you have good luck at the walmart five dollar DVD bin(found some old and odd stuff there before) or a used media store(which media companies what to shut down for some stupid reason)
--
[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports | |
| | zod5000
join:2003-10-21
Edmonton, AB
·TELUS
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| Caps are useless! I kinda felt this would happen. The more knowledgable internet users find ways to consume bandwidth faster then the average user.
The average user still catches up. So instead of capping, they should be building infrastructure, so when the masses start using their bandwidth they're prepared. | |
| Croaker
join:2009-10-01
Ottawa ON | Encryption - YES! Clap, clap, clap...bravo!
Finally, after years of advocating the use of encryption for everything intertubes related - we're making some headway!
Now, if we can only get grandma to use it for email... | |
| chronoss2009
join:2008-09-23
·TekSavvy Solutions..
1 edit | that phrase "legal" it ought ot be illegal to say that somehting is illegal isn't.
Especially wiht so many varying jurisdictions and law sets across the earth.
How about you say
-Lobbyist music download sites OR
-BIG LABEL music download sites
WHY?
cause the second you do that we the people for how you have treated us go NOPE NO FRAKING WAY AND NOT
and they will not be viable long the proping up is not going to work music shall be FREE
--------------
oh and yea i got all my music i need now
YOUR BEAT for $$$ RIAA
I bet everyone else did a mad rush to do what i did.
NOW your going to see 2 things:
Fewer users as people dont need to get stuff
Decrease in all things netwise as people go offline to share and enjoy stuff | |
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