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Comment by throwaway2048 | Hacker News Reader

throwaway2048

i uploaded dozens of albums to what.cd, it didn't help with my ratio in the slightest, because some seed-box grabs one copy, then they take all the rest of the ratio because they have much faster internet than me. Out of everything i uploaded, with all qualities/encodes included, i got maybe 2-3GB of ratio.

Again, what is the point of a torrent site that punishes you for actually using it, even if you are fully willing to contribute via seeding, or albums, etc.

As a heavy user for years, sorry, the what.cd system was fundamentally broken if you didn't have a fast seed-box to slurp up ratio fron everyone else. Because its zero sum, the seedboxes win, and everyone else loses. Which is totally insane when bits are 100% free things that can be copied endlessly, isn't that the whole point of BitTorrent to begin with?!

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I was an Elite member (100GB+ upload), without any seedbox, within 2 weeks. I had the upload and actually had to wait out the time restriction. I had uploaded and transcoded/cross-seeded hundreds of albums.

You have to give a lot more than you take - and yes, seedboxes are doing more than you in the "giving" aspect.

> and yes, seedboxes are doing more than you in the "giving" aspect.

Are they? Surely after a certain point, adding more bandwidth to the network doesn't make a difference. If you add another fast seedbox, maybe some people could download an album 5 seconds faster, but that's only if they could pay the ratio for the album in the first place, which they might not be able to if they weren't a seedbox user themselves. I think what.cd had more than enough seedboxes and that it probably would have been more important to the community to upload new 100% FLAC rips or seed unpopular or poorly seeded torrents than to add another seedbox that just auto-snatched popular/2016 releases and freeleech torrents.

> I was an Elite member (100GB+ upload), without any seedbox, within 2 weeks.

Remember, not everyone has a good enough home internet connection to do this. Back-of-the-napkin calculations say, even if I spent the whole time uploading at full speed, my shitty 0.5 Mb/s connection would still take more than 2 weeks to upload 100GB.

Which is why low cost seedboxes exist.

last time i checked 100GB of storage with 1-2TB caps at 1GB in and out was close to $5 month

You can pay in bitcoin if you're concerned about "privacy" but they all take paypal.

Point is, there's no low-powered user option. You can't be a casual and survive. I can't just engage every few months when I feel like it if I have to pay a subscription. A user has to put in a lot of effort BEFORE they get anything out, and then has to keep up that effort.

What use is a glorious library if you have to work there for free a few days a week before they let you read any of the books?

There's not quite true, you could download tens of gigabytes with no minimum ratio required at all as long as you seeded them.

>A user has to put in a lot of effort BEFORE they get anything out, and then has to keep up that effort.

Fill a request whenever you need more upload. There are many low hanging fruits for 25-75GB and $15-35. Requests are "high value" uploads that don't rely on you seeding to multiple people, just uploading and claiming the reward. Very low effort and sometimes the requester even links you to where you can purchase the material.

Requested uploads hold more value to the community (or at least a single member) than {random local band that had two shows and gave out poorly mixed CD's one time}.

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