> These sites seem to be run by idealistic individuals, rather than as a profit making enterprise.
You really think people advertising adaware 'Improve PC performance now' and 'watch XXX live with donkeys' are idealistic individuals fighting draconian copyright laws?
Also I don't know about kickass - but for example the /scrape endpoint is blocked on the piratebay tracker (and most other 'commercial' trackers) -- meaning that you can't get basic statistics (like leechers/seeders) about a torrent which is tracked by them without going through their advertisements.
The common ad networks usually have TOSs banning torrent sites and such, so unless you can bankroll the site yourself, you'll have to resort to shadier networks.
By the way, TPB hasn't had a tracker for seven years now.
>but kickass is huge. It has to be making a lot of money.
That seems like a pretty fallacious leap to me. It may have a lot of users, but all those users add expense, and most of them are savvy enough to use an ad-blocker.
Quite frankly, thousands of users does not a millionaire make. I'm sure we'll see more details in the upcoming suit though.
You really think people advertising adaware 'Improve PC performance now' and 'watch XXX live with donkeys' are idealistic individuals fighting draconian copyright laws?
Also I don't know about kickass - but for example the /scrape endpoint is blocked on the piratebay tracker (and most other 'commercial' trackers) -- meaning that you can't get basic statistics (like leechers/seeders) about a torrent which is tracked by them without going through their advertisements.