[2143]

Well, it can be used to transfer any large files amongst a bunch of people.

I like the protocol in theory. If n people want the same resource, it seems better if they get that in a sort of distributed way rather than all of them connecting to a central server to get that resource. Can be useful if you're on a slow network. I wonder if existing routers along the way make this efficient regardless.

Some Linux distros nudge you towards torrents to download its .iso file even if direct download methods are available. Xubuntu is one such distro [1].

Also, can anybody from Germany confirm if there's a ban on torrenting over there? I hear some governments/ISPs etc are starting to blanket-ban the entire protocol to prevent proliferation of pirated movies, which seems to be what the protocol is used for in practice.

[1] https://xubuntu.org/download/

[Loranubi]

Torrenting is not banned in Germany. You are just easily sued if you distribute copyrighted material. Not just isp warnings and the like

[Gigachad]

These days it’s much more practical to just upload it to cloud storage and share a link.

Sure in theory it’s not the absolute fastest way but it’s massively more convenient and regular users aren’t sharing 1TB files.

[jszymborski]

The bandwidth isn't much fun to pay for though.

[Gigachad]

No consumer cloud storage charges you for transfers.

[jszymborski]

If I'm reading the AWS S3 pricing charts right[0], you get charged 0.09 USD per GB for the first 10 Tb of transfer out of US East.

If 1000 people download my 1 GB file that I host on S3, that'll run me 90 USD.

You can host on Wasabi which is the only object storage I know where out is free, but my understanding is that the storage is more expensive.

[0] Which I might not be because I'm pretty sure you need an astrologer.

[derefr]

By "consumer cloud storage" the GP commenter likely meant to refer to services like Dropbox, Mega, etc.; not to IaaS object storage (which would more appropriately be called "commercial cloud storage.")

[jszymborski]

Ah that makes sense! I occasionally use Wasabi to sling files around so that's where my mind was when I made the original comment.

I do feel like you do end up paying for storage if you're sharing anything significant in size, which is where torrents become more convenient imho if both parties know how to use a torrent client.