Is Commercial P2P In Trouble ?

[GhostShip]

With many of the commercial P2P companies recently laying off employees, whats the forecast for the future ?

http://newteevee.com/2008/11/14/p2p-and-the-economic-downturn-hello-browser-toolbars/

The recent shake-up at BitTorrent Inc., which consisted of replacing its CEO, losing its president and firing half of its workforce, has fueled speculation that P2P as a B2C business model is dead. Paul Glazowski mused the other day that, “The legit, utopian vision of paid-for P2P downloads is headed for a depression,” while the typically upbeat P2P news site Slyck.com contended that “things could get dicey” for BitTorrent and other, similar startups.

Actually, things already have, at least in terms of the number of people that have been laid off. BitTorrent went to 18 employees from 55 in just four months, and Vuze recently confirmed two rounds of cuts totaling 24 people. P2P advertising startup Skyrider closed shop completely in October, and file-sharing dinosaur Morpheus quietly faded away earlier this year.

The article here goes on to discuss the revenues collected from utilising optional "toolbars" and how they can generate million of dollars that will be a help in the lean times to keep these companies afloat, lets hope they remain plump enough for the enemies of filesharing to devote all their time to while open src and free filesharing continues its amateur existence in the much favoured non commercial "social" market where every user brings value to the experience.

[White Stripes]

BitTorrent went to 18 employees from 55 in just four months

is that why the 'official' bittorrent client cant 'connect to update server' ? (or is it cos i always uninstall bittorrents unused/unneeded 'DNA' component..?)

as far as toolbars goes? they better not start with that kind of crap... apps that do -that- will be uninstalled immediately...

why is it when software goes commercial it turns to crap? (opera web browser being the only exception i can think of... it actually got better the older/more popular it got)

[Cobra]

why is it when software goes commercial it turns to crap?

Because when there is no money involved, the drive to advance things is coming from somewhere else such as a passion to please the people who use it or a general love for it in general by the programer.

But add money to the equation and the drive to make money overpowers the drive to please the customer because, even if the old customer is no longer as happy, new customers that don't know any better will appear and buy into it, literally.