[soyelmango]

"Sending your friends/family/colleagues a link on MegaUpload (or similar) was essentially putting a paywall between them and the file you actually wanted to give them."

However, if you want to transfer a large file to someone, and are not technically savvy enough to have Dropbox, FTP, or some other hosting, you'd probably Google how to send a file, and services such as MegaUpload and Yousendit would be the top results.

The services are biassed to make things as easy as possible for the uploader (free, no sign up required, just enter recipient's email address, redirect to subscribe page after), who is unlikely to take into account the things done to make things a little harder for the downloader (delayed download, premium paywall, throttled free service). For clients who have neither the budget nor the wits to pay for the premium service or their own hosting, the free service worked fine for occasional use.