BitTorrent Addiction: The Thrill of the Chase
Written by enigmax on October 05, 2007It’s great to have access to a huge library of media via your torrent client, no one can deny that, but for many users BitTorrent is more than just a functional tool. It’s become an addictive hobby, with puzzles to solve and treasures to find.
Bram Cohen, the creator of BitTorrent, loves puzzles - although he insists he’s not an addict. However, many users of the BitTorrent system he created can’t say they feel the same way about their new hobby.
After a brief introduction, many BitTorrent users find themselves really interested by this great system and how it all fits together. Sure, the free media BitTorrent provides is a great attraction and a positive reinforcement for continuing, but for many, the real attraction lies elsewhere.
For some hardcore torrenters, the media acquired is secondary. Enjoyable, yes - but in a post-coital cigarette-type way - the icing on the cake if you like. Sure, many torrenters just grab a torrent and come back to the PC when it’s finished but they’re blissfully unaware of where the real action is to be found. For the serious torrenters, it’s all about the thrill of the chase.
At first, the BitTorrent novice doesn’t know there are forces of evil lurking around every corner, dedicated to ensuring that his downloading experience is as difficult as possible. He (or she) is unaware that super-powerful corporations with friends in government are intent on sabotage.
He has no idea that this new hobby has such high stakes. It could potentially land him in prison or cause him to end up with a massive 6-digit fine. When the novice starts to build his knowledge of such things, it can be little bit scary - but the adrenaline flows a little and the excitement builds. The hobby becomes more intense.
With this new found energy and a little research, things become clearer for the BitTorrent student. Moving away from simply downloading, a strategy forms as he learns that for most attacks on his sharing experience, there is an effective counter-measure. So for example, any attempt to say, set up fake torrents, can be dealt with effectively by employing various counter techniques. Torrent sites start to be chosen through intelligence, not just at random.
As more experience is gathered, the BitTorrent fan will probably start to understand that organizations such as the MPAA like to deal in propaganda, and that the big headlines of being fined huge amounts or being sent to jail are not the norm. In reality, he’ll learn that the chances of coming to grief in these ways are tiny and over time, will probably come to disregard these risks.
For the more nervous torrenter, the file-sharing world can be an unforgiving place. As he learns of the many threats and people looking to profit from things like malware, he may start to put up more defenses. Terrified of getting into trouble, he may turn to services such as those offered by Peer Guardian or an anonymous VPN solution such as that offered by Relakks.
Most hobbies involve getting into the minutia and in this respect, BitTorrent is an absolute dream. On many forums, there is talk of squeezing every last little bit of performance from a BitTorrent setup - many fans are, well - fanatical about the details. Most users agree, the best way, is as fast as possible!
There are lots of things that aim to interfere with the torrent experience but thankfully, the informed BitTorrent user will pick up lots of tips and tricks along the way to help restore torrent harmony, ensuring that this hobby stays fun.
Whatever the strategy, many BitTorrent hobbyists have as much fun during the chase as they do when experiencing the media they’ve successfully snared. Although nice to have, the media isn’t always the number one importance. For some it’s just great to hoard but it’s the road to finding and obtaining the stuff that increasingly provides the pull for the torrent hardcore. The whole BitTorrent experience can be quite captivating with its technical elements, all wrapped up in a stealthy cloak-and-dagger social layer, plenty of intrigue, many new friends and lots of fun.
For some of the 21st century’s digital treasure hunters, it’s great to ‘get’ - but the journey getting there (making friends and sharing the fun with others along the way) can be better still.
Previously: Mininova.org Servers and Traffic: 2006 vs 2007
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112 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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You did post some good points.. when I’m downloading something really hard to find or w/e, it’s the thrill of finding it, not necessarily finding it itself… or am I just sad :P
(no-one say yes)
Actually I am a bit more paranoid than nervous. Anyway, when I download something that took a lot of time to find. I am afraid to say but the most likely thing to happen is either I fall asleep. or take care of my responsibilities on other sites or RL.
No thrill here. Just life as usual.
I would agree to this article.
Often when I’m away I think which cool torrents that have been released, and can’t wait to get home and download them. Mostly TV-shows.
It’s not just the content, but the experience. Setting up the client and find the torrent with most seeders/leechers, and the best seeder/leecher ratio.
great article. you should write more original content like this.
Thanks for nice article :).
Great Read!
I can definitely relate… nice article!
Enigmax, I think you’ve nailed it.
I’ve read in several forums where BitTorrent users commented that they don’t watch or listen to half of the stuff they download. Meanwhile, they have over a Terabyte of downloads stored on their hard disks.
I’ve always thought of it as a fad, but I think your hunch of a neuro-chemical satisfaction response is probably more likely.
Excellent article!
I always have crap I never watch/listen to. It’s just nice to be hanging out with your friends and something come out in conversation, like a new movie, album, etc. And it almost always seems I have it. Also movie night with my gf seems to be not going out to blockbuster anymore, its just browsing the download folder for dvd rips.
Well been a torrent tracker administrator there is a lot more then what this article has said to torrents! Once you have got in deep enough you will find that there is a hell of a lot more to file-sharing then torrents! torrents are just the tip of the ice berg! and once you have got in deep enough you will see how addicting it can be! you file will revolve around file-sharing! (not saying that is a bad thing!)
I think the only thing this article got right was that the content does come second, and on some days ever 3rd 4th or 5th!
Good luck noods!!
Fun article. After all the name calling recently it is nice to see something like this.
I can relate well to many of your point. My “collection” has gotten seriously out of control. Not that long ago I had a couple of CDs gathering dust. A bunch of cassette tapes tossed in a box. And some old LPs with nothing to play them on. I had dropped out of the game pretty much due to the high prices of content and the poor quality.
Now I have over 130GBs of music and it keeps growing. So many groups I had never heard of. So many oldies I thought were lost forever. Types of music I didn’t even know existed.
From Napster to Morphous to Audio Galaxy to EMule to Lime Wire to WinMx to BitTorrent and probably soon to UseNet.
Heaven is finding a particular song that NO ONE else has ever shared and has been out of print for decades. Hell is thinking about what would happen if my hard drives should all fail at once.
enigmax you are dead right the psychology of the game is small world theory with infinite levels of discovery
sharing is ethical, it is a deeply justified act, it is a personal connection in an alienating network. your mother tells you to share, we all want to do it, it is pronatural
3 months ago one of our h33t uploaders ‘migel’ made a torrent AOI within which he hid a number of ’secrets’ for the downloaders to find. he got a number of responses but for the main it was not understood. it takes time and repetition to promote a resonant truth to a frequency where it becomes part of the harmonic background
today enigmax in your article you hit the bell. if i had a hammer, i’d ring it in the morning, i’d ring it in the evening all over this land, i’d ring our justice, i’d ring our freedom, i’d ring our peace between my brothers and my sisters all over this land
;D
I love the creator, he’s insanely brilliant.
yes God is Good
thank God he is on our side :D
Personally, my packrat tendencies are due to the fear that if I delete something, I won’t be able to get it again. The torrent will be dead or deleted from the site. I have deleted things and regretted it SO MANY TIMES in the past, and storage is getting cheap enough that I’d rather not worry about that anymore.
Hence, my terabyte of music I rarely listen to. It makes sense, in context.
I download out of necessity only. Of course, I never have had an addictive personality. Too many other things to worry about. =)
Yes I love looking at my bt client. Its the best thing since sliced bread… before there was only syslog on linux or defrag on windows.
Now my new addiction watching the client accumulate data… I don’t even care what I download in fact I immediately delete it after I got a 1 ratio… so I can do it all over again.
Using wireshark on it is even better than porn! This is so awesome I even stopped taking drugs or going to the toilet.
lol TF news crack me up every time.
[quote comment="181567"]Well been a torrent tracker administrator there is a lot more then what this article has said to torrents![/quote]
I totally agree!
I already cut the post down from 4 pages to a longer-than-usual length - it is indeed a complex subject.
I considered including many other elements, such as the fun monitoring for new releases and the psychology of the big sharers/releasers but you know, sometimes you have to end the article and go eat ;)
@h33t - if I had a hammer i’d certainly share it with you :D
After the good feedback I’ll certainly try to do more stuff like this. Thanks for the kind comments everyone, they keep us going!
I would fit in the ‘monitor for new releases’ you mentioned.
I barely download illegal things. Yet I find my self every day on torrent sites or other warez sites, just to see what’s new.
Anyway, nice article. I hope you’ll post the other BT addictions too. =)
Now, what we’re all waiting for here is the “are you addicted to bittorrent” test :D
Excellent Column, I can relate to that… Especially the part:
“it’s great to ‘get’ - but the journey getting there (making friends and sharing the fun with others along the way) can be better still.”
anyone having trouble with utorrent 2day?? not connecting etc..
i receive my thrill from watching the speed graph. upload vs download graph….when the graph increases exponentially and reaches its peak at 1 mbs…this is where u curse ur isp for holding u back. :)
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