[Retric]

From what I see Data Transfer is $0.10 per GB in $0.15 out http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/

Assume you seed 50% more than you use 1GB (10c in) + (15c * 1.5 seeding) + (15c download) = ~47.5 cents per GB ouch.

However, a blue ray rip is something like 8.5GB * 47.5 cents = 4.04$ which is not that bad. Assuming you get the actual content that you want, don't end up in jail etc, it’s still cheaper than HD PPV let alone buying the Disk.

Edit: I chose a BR rip as the lowest value content per GB, for most other uses it seems fairly reasonable.

[trotsky]

Agreed, it's hard to understand this making any financial sense. If you're looking to do substantial seeding there are low cost unlimited bandwidth vps' that specialize there. If you're simply looking for a delayed but fast torrent download there are services that essentially transfer torrents to files on their server for you to download. And if you simply want to download things fast & on demand, there is always nntp.

Imagine if someone failed to set a max seeding amount and forgot about their EC2 instance for a few days or weeks. It'd be easy to transfer hundreds or thousands of gigabytes (1TB out = $150)

AWS is one of the most expensive ways to buy bandwidth out there. To do worse you have to look at high end dedicated & managed colos and bad deals at big CDNs.

[mwmanning]

> If you're simply looking for a delayed but fast torrent download there are services that essentially transfer torrents to files on their server for you to download.

Do you have a links to any services like that? The fact that I couldn't find any is why I decided to try this at all.

[trotsky]

http://www.furk.net/

http://www.peerharbor.com/

I haven't used these services and can't vouch etc. etc.

(It's notable that two others I was thinking of, httptorrents.com and imageshack.us have either gone out of business or have cancelled the service. So predictably it's a pretty spotty market).

And, at the risk of breaking rule #1, have you heard of usenet?

[mwmanning]

Thanks.

> And, at the risk of breaking rule #1, have you heard of usenet?

Of course :)

[dstein]

Don't forget these are just today's prices. These costs are dropping a couple times a year, and presumably dropping at a faster rate than your cable internet bill (which is probably rising).

There will absolutely come a point in the future when it will be cheaper to download and store all your files in the cloud, and keep them in the cloud rather than download and store locally.