alt Hacker NewsUnlike public trackers, private trackers are largely filled with seeders with very few leechers. If 50 people have a file and one person goes to download you are only getting a tiny slice of that at best and for small files there may not even be enough chunks to get anything at all.
It makes no sense to me since bandwidth is so cheap compared to 20+ years ago and I think the incentives should instead encourage variety and availability like a distributed, highly-available, P2P archive.
> .. I think the incentives should instead encourage variety and availability like a distributed, highly-available, P2P archive.
Which is exactly what it is like for many trackers these days. They have an "economy" where some type of bonus point system allows you to buy upload credits. You often acquire this by either simply seeding over time, or by uploading special torrents with rewards, eg double upload credits, etc.
Some trackers even double down on this concept and basically only care about long term seeding. Ratio doesn't matter as much if you're seeding 24/7.