All torrent trackers that I'm aware of currently base their "ratio", or their credit system, on throughput uploaded vs. downloaded.
The main problem with this system is that seeding is exponentially rewarded compared with uploading of new content. This disincentivizes users from uploading new material since they're basically treated like dogs. Users who put in very little effort to buy a seedbox or who happen to have a faster internet connection are treated like kings. Many torrent trackers give some sort of bonus for other activities, such as uploading new content, but that bonus always scales linearly and is usually quite small.
A secondary problem is that it this system is oblivious to the value of individual uploads. It treats a $2 CD on the same level as a $2 million rare item or a 10xLP Vinyl rip that took hours of effort to complete.
A tertiary problem is "freeleeches". This system allows most users to provide nothing in return for a long time, waiting for free handouts. Those free handouts are like the government printing money and giving it away -- they cause inflation in a sense, although it's not too relevant in market where all prices are fixed, and most credit is simply stored in users' accounts where it will never be spent (it's essentially lost).
As a consequence of their design, torrent trackers are generally a cesspool of the lowest order. Many users would rather copy the same dubious/low quality torrents from one tracker to another, re-encode other peoples' uploads, and so on, rather than spend a couple dollars to provide something of more value to the community. Most new material basically relies on charity from a small number of users, or on the misguided effort by newer users who haven't understood how the system screws them over, yet.
What torrent trackers have failed to do is appeal to higher class individuals. There are collectors with vast collections of material out there. There are many users who are willing to buy original content to share. But everyone is discouraged when they see hundreds of thousands of leeches living for free off of their work, and they're confronted with a system that provides no incentive for them to work. It's analogous to how few people would want to work if they could live off of government welfare.
My question asks about "improvement", and this is obviously subjective. Currently, trackers are very much quantity over quality and are designed to welcome and appeal to the lowest members. What I'm wondering is if a different credit system could be invented that would reverse this.
The first consideration is how to tackle the main problem above. Here are things that I can think of that ought to be incentivized in a healthy sharing community:
1. Uploading new content
2. Seeding existing content (throughput)
3. Keeping torrents alive (seeding # of torrents; re-seeding)
Current systems treat #2 as most important and #1 and #3 as small bonuses. I am thinking about a system that treats #1 as most important and #2 and #3 as of lesser (or equal) importance. It's possible that #2 and #3 could simply be expected things to do based on morality, or failing to them could be punished.
The second consideration is for the value of an upload. I suggest that it needs to be quantified based on factors such as its market price, rarity, and the difficulty/amount of energy that went into sharing it.
The third consideration is how to design the credit system. I haven't figured this out yet, because it's a tricky problem. Current torrent trackers inject new credit into the system via new user accounts and freeleeches. Without credit in the system, things would grind to a halt. Some credit leaves the system as accounts are closed or abandoned, and credit becomes centralized in members that give more to the community than they take. The amount of credit floating around determines how much activity can be going on in the system at once.
Here are some thought experiments:
A) The principle of unlimited sharing. Say you have 100 users and each share 1 upload. Each user would get 99 downloads.
B) Add value. If 1 user contributes 5 units of value and 99 contribute 10 units, the 1 user would get 495 units.
C) Sharing is not unlimited. If only 10 users are interested in a user's upload, the user should only get 50 units of credit (5 from each of them).
D) The system starts with 0 credit. It has to be created before the first transaction can take place.
E) In a few decades, torrent trackers may have central banks, because the credit system is basically a currency. Perhaps re-seeding a dead torrent will be at a cost negotiated between the two parties. :-)
My final consideration is the moral one. BitTorrent is a technology that could be used in many different economies. It's wrong to associate it with one particular economy. Yet in a world where many people believe that universal, indiscriminate sharing is the "moral" thing to do, it may be very hard to operate a community in defiance of that principle. Prospective members would need to be filtered. A certain level of trust is required. The fact that digital information can be replicated indefinitely works to undermine that trust.
Any economists in here? Anyone interested in creating a better torrent site, if we can bash out the details?
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