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BitTorrent Tries To Appease Users By Making Torrent Ads Optional
hypnosec writes "BitTorrent has backtracked on their stance that uTorrent ads cannot be 'turned off,' following a user revolt. They announced that users can opt-out of sponsored torrents if they don't wish to see them. Last weekend BitTorrent announced it would make uTorrent ad-enabled and that it would have a 'sponsored torrents' feature which couldn't be disabled. As one would have imagined, this didn't go over well with many users, and they let out their anger on the uTorrent forums. 'You seriously think that uTorrent is going to survive now? The Admin/Devs are seriously deluded. Pure greed has turned your once loved app into a bloated and buggy cash cow,' said one user."
A better approach would be to set up a Kickstarter campaign outlining all the work that needs to be done and who needs to be paid for their efforts, and how much money it will take to support this for 6 months or 12 months or something. They would sail past their reqested amount long before the deadline. Vaguely similar to the humble bundle approach in a way.
They could make a big deal out of how this approach means they avoid needing advertising sponsors.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
Or use any of the multitude of other clients.
It's not like BitTorrent is a widely-known standardized protocol with a handful of existing open-source clients...
...Oh. Wait.
We refuse to be appeased under any circumstances. We will stand aloof and BitTorrent must grovel.
*continues seeding the ArchLinux iso*
Pay for your what now?
cat
nowadays "free" all too often means you are the product being sold.
*continues seeding the ArchLinux iso*
You goddam thief. You've not just stolen a stolen a sale from an honest hard working corporation, but you've probably enabled the theft of thoudands of sales. I don't know how you can sleep at night when you steal so much from honest corportations working hard to make quality proprietary operating systems. I know your type. Next you'll be killing babies.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Besides the increasingly intrusive ads, uTorrent 3.x.x just sucks. It randomly consumes 100% of one cpu core and is highly unpredictable on bandwidth usage when downloading. I'm sticking with 2.2.1 until hell freezes over.
Next you'll be killing babies
or puppies:
# rm -f puppylinux.iso
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I'll happily pay the original creators and people who worked on something for their efforts
But I won't pay any IP "owners" who aren't the original creators
And I won't pay for marketing since I can find out about stuff myself
And I won't pay the compensation of executives or board members or investors or dividends for stockholders since they had nothing to do with the creation process
And I won't pay for packaging, distribution, or retail markup since duplicating and transporting the data is effectively a cost-free process
And I won't pay for anything older than ~10 years since if the original creator hasn't made their money in 10 years they never will (the exception being games older than 10 years which are updated to run on newer hardware without emulation, but not for the original 10 year old game)
And I won't pay for anything that I already purchased
I don't understand why people get all PMSey over advertising. It's easy enough to ignore (go get a drink, go pee, go update your facebook status, glance at your magazine, et cetera). I'd sooner ignore an ad then have to pay ~$250 a year per network (example: BBC) or per program (~$70 for LimeWire). Advertising gives me 40+ channels of freetoair TV, plus thousands of free websites and dozens of programs.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Yes. Things that are free are magically exempt from criticism. People's negative feelings about free things simply don't exist, and so they're unable to express them.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
That's silly. Anything and everything is open to criticism. If someone doesn't like something, they can criticize it and explain why.
None of this means that you have to make changes when someone criticizes you, but they have every right to criticize you. They also have a right to criticize you and then find another alternative.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
First, I pay for netflix, and normally watch stuff on there. However, I'd say that netflix still has a ways to go on things like subtitling, alternate languages, and seeking. While I don't play entire episodes at 1.5X like Celebi, I have the opposite problem - I fairly frequently have a 'what was that' reaction and want to go back 10-15 seconds, which means I have to wait 10-15 seconds while netflix tosses it's cache and redownloads the past minute or so. With a downloaded movie, that's a button click away.
While I have to wait for a torrent to finish downloading, that can be done in the background. The final product is typically superior to watching it on netflix, and often better than DVD. Blueray - depends on how annoying they made the disc; I've had a few that takes me 5+ minutes to get to what I paid for. Every time I put the disc in. I've heard of some that are more like 15 minutes.
For the record, I don't mind you putting advertising in the free space on the disc. What I mind is you setting it to play automatically before the menu comes up, as unskippably as you can make it, every time the disc goes in. Put it in the extra features. I'll actually look at that stuff on occasion(and that's all you need when it's a purchased disk). I especially love it(sarc) when it's for an older disc and I already own what they're advertising.
I don't read AC A human right
Torrent users are emotionally invested in one product in a very competitive field. Product makers figured they could screw torrent users over as if they had a monopoly. Torrent users reminded product makers that there are many competing products that are on par or better then their product, and that the only reason they're staying with their product is because of sentimental value. Product makers chickened out.
Not entirely sure how you went from "vigilant customers" to "spoiled and ungrateful customers". Unless you're a type to whom these two are synonyms.
uTorrent is given away although you have the option of paying. If you are given something for free (as in a gift from someone else) you have zero room for bitching. Now had you paid $10 that's a different story.
I'll offer to paint your walls with faeces for free. Since it's free, you have no reason to refuse or complain.
Or... just keep using the old uTorrent. It's got the basic and advanced feature set nailed down just fine. There's not a whole lot that needs done to it.
Fear is the mind killer.
Well, torrent users are obviously perceptive. Adding about 50 lines of code to add a display spot for an image, catch a click and call a URL launcher, and do a periodic network call to download ad packages (an image and an ad ID) sure bloats the hell out of software. I mean uTorrent only took what, 15 lines of bash to implement in the first place?
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Product makers figured they could screw torrent users over as if they had a monopoly.
Too many companies think this way, alas. Look at Sony, the Apple of the seventies and eighties. Now they think they're Microsoft and can root and vandalize paying customers' computers with XCP, remove features from a product the customer has already paid for, be sloppy with customer info, and wonder why they've been losing money lateley. Well DUH, idiots, you're not Microsoft. You're not even Apple any more.
Free Martian Whores!