[africanboy]

> Why politicians still think that if they ban something then it will magically go away?

because people don't like to go to jail

> "oh it's banned, I guess I'll stop using it then"

that's exactly what's gonna happen in Turkey though. But even if it wasn't Turkey which is ruled by an autocrat, a ban would steer away casual users that usually means the thing banned won't succeed in the long run.

imagine if YouTube was banned in some country and the ban would stay even after public protests (admitting that public protests were allowed)

YouTube usage would immediately drop to a number very close to zero.

[BrandoElFollito]

> imagine if YouTube was banned in some country and the ban would stay even after public protests (admitting that public protests were allowed)

> YouTube usage would immediately drop to a number very close to zero.

Let's take the real example of HADOPI in France, the illustration of the institution that was supposed to hunt bittorrent use in France.

When it was announced, some people dropped bittorrent, but not that much. You had zillions of tutorials on how to avoid it.

What is killing bittorrent is Netflix. As someone else put it very well in another comment: this is a viable alternative.

Now that bittorrent usage is stable and that lots of people moved to netflix because it is easier, HADOPI is slowly dying.

[africanboy]

> supposed to hunt bittorrent use in France

that's not the same thing.

torrenting illegal material was already illegal, before Netflix.

and France is not Turkey, but no Germany either where the ban on illegal downloads actually works, because they will get you.

In my opinion cause and effect are reversed here: Netflix is going strong because there is a ban on torrents and sharing copyrighted material in general and it worked.

If it was the other way around, Netflix would earn peanuts.

Also, people get around a ban on torrents because there is no risk, the worse thing that can happen is that you won't watch a movie illegally.

Now think about using illegal money and the consequences...

> HADOPI is slowly dying.

again, wrong comparison.

How many people watch YouTube videos in China and how many would if it was not banned?

That's your benchmark.

Look at the ban on guns, where the ban exists the number of guns in people hands is very low.

If it worked as you said, where arms are banned people would use them illegally.

But instead they do not (again: generally speaking).

Think about prostitution, it's legal in Germany where the government estimates the real number may be as high as 400,000 almost 0.5% of the population.

In Italy, where it's practically illegal (it's complicated, but we can safely assume it is not legal as in Germany) the number is estimated at 100,000 or 0,15% of the population.

Bans do work, the fact that not all bans work the same way, doesn't mean that they don't work.