47 lines
2.5 KiB
Markdown
47 lines
2.5 KiB
Markdown
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# Private bittorrent trackers are markets
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Private bittorrent trackers have a currency called ratio,
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which is the bits you upload divided the bits you download.
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You have to keep the ratio above a certain lower limit,
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otherwise you get banned from the market or have to cut a deal with the moderators → bancruptcy
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New liquidity (?) is introduced to the market by so-called “freeleech” events or tokens,
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which essentially allow you to exchange a token (or some time in the case of time-restricted freeleech)
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for some data, which can then be seeded to generate future profits without spending ratio.
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Sometimes, ratio is pulled from the market by allowing to exchange it into website perks,
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like forum titles or other benefits like chat-memberships. This has a deflationary effect.
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It could be compared to “vanity items” in MMOs, which don’t grant a mechanical advantage in the market.
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Is there a real-world equivalent? i.e. allowing rich people to exchange some of their worth
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for vanity items instead of investing it for future gain?
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Sometimes, ratio can be traded for more than just transferred bits,
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for example by requesting a torrent for a certain album or movie,
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paying some ratio for the fulfillment of the request.
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---
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Based on how bittorrent works, usually multiple people “seed” a torrent.
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This means multiple people can answer a request for trading ratio.
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Part of the request (i.e. the first 30% of a movie)
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can be fulfilled by one party, part of it by a second or even more parties.
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For small requests (e.g. albums), often the time between announcing the trade
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and filling the trade is important for who is able to fill it.
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Getting a 1 second head-start vastly increases your chance of a handshake
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and starting the transmission, so on average you get a vastly higher ratio gain from that torrent.
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Meaning that using a bittorrent client which is fast to answer as a seeder will lead to better outcomes.
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This could be compared to mechanisms seen in high-speed trading.
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---
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Of course these market-mechanisms are in service of a wider policy goal,
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which is to ensure the constant availability of as much high-quality data as possible.
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There is more mechanisms at play on these trackers that all contribute to this goal
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(possible keywords to research: trumping, freeleech for underseeded torrents).
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In general, it is important to remember that markets are only a tool,
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never an end in themselves, as neoliberalists would like us to believe.
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They always are in service of a wider goal or policy. We live in a society.
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