I think what you’re missing here is that BitTorrennt networks aren’t just data networks, but social networks. the “fringe” or more appropriately, “casual” user almost always is mentored into bittorrenting via a more core user.

Almost every core BT user I know has 6-12 casual users that turn to him for recommendations for replacements when a major tracker goes down and they are, overwhelmingly, sharing even more after such an event, many becoming “core” users themselves. At least, this has been the experience of myself and other core BT users I know.

Still, what I suggested was that sharing might temporarily lose some steam, and thus lose a lot of fringe users who visit these sites because they’re convenient. That’s likely to be a temporary effect, yes. But I’ll stand by my opinion — that the massive sharing community that currently exists may indestructible to an extent, but could be reduced in size.

At the moment piracy is winning in the convemince and ease of use areas compared to Joost gets to the level of having all content availible globally and easy to find .

At the momnet Joost has most of its content geo restricted becuse international distribution agreements lock up content for years ,the shows are hard to find and not ordered becuse of lack of metadata from content owners .

Bittorent users have created thier own standard when it comes to expianing then the show was aired

Example

Bittoret

Survivor : S015E01
http://sharetv.org/shows/survivor

Joost
Survivor: China – A Chicken’s A Little Bit Smarter
(Joost removed the show last night but it was only found by search and wasnt in the CBS channel )

And your comments about indexing sites being closed down is already being solved with Tribler a Open Source Distributed Bittorent trackers with Triber a open source distributed social Bittorent client .

https://www.tribler.org/

That’s great, but kicking all the legs from beneath a table at once (or cutting all the heads off a hydra) will still cause it to collapse. The system, as a whole, tends to revolve around a few more popular sites.

Will the system recover? Sure, eventually, but in the process, a lot of the fringe users who don’t immediately know the next portal to go to will wander off. In the process, more of the larger sites might decide that it’d be a good idea for them to block US traffic, too.

The more difficult issue will be for Bittorrent systems trying to go legitimate to distance themselves from such sites.

That’s because they share a common open source protocol with illegal sites which are increasingly being filtered by ISPs, as VentureBeat points out.

ISPs need to conserve precious upstream bandwidth that is becoming congested.

Itiva is a hybrid CDN with an optimal P2P component that does not allow file sharing. Nor are we subject to ISP filtering.

In fact, we’re seen as method friendly by ISPs. We reduce load on the network rather than stress and burden it.

If you want to drill down more, just call me at 650.330.1300, ext. 202 about this critical business topic.

Best regards,
Jay Mejia
VP of Business Development
Itiva Networks
jaymejia@itiva.com

would you like to cite your sources

But it does make an interesting counter point on the article, however, most things with bittorrent are agenda laden, it is very hard to tell the truth from the invented.