Delving into the Commercial P2P World

Anonymous Coward writes "PBS has an interesting look at the emerging commercialized P2P networks brought to light by Cringely. With the news of Sky's default bundling of commercial P2P applications in its broadband software, many users seemed to be against the idea of getting nothing from providing Sky with their upstream bandwidth for free. Meanwhile, PeerImpact, seems to be rewarding users for their P2P system through PeerCash, and GridNetworks is building an system called PeerReward."

Not a bad idea

[grapeape]

Commecial P2P to me never made sense, I was supposed to pay for the song then give my bandwidth so others could pay someone else for the same song. At least they are trying, and now I know if I share there is something I am getting back.

Steam?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Valve's Steam P2P? I recall hearing that they hired the guy that developed Bittorrent.

Re:Not a bad idea

[grapeape]

If it's done properly spamming wouldnt be useful. Its likely that the songs titles and tags would be standardized so sharing would be mostly anonymous. If its not an authorized share it simply wouldnt be sharable. I can see it being kind of like people with solar panels selling electricity back to the electric company, if you generate more than you use, you get compensated.

Re:Not a bad idea

[dotslasher_sri]

I guess it would make more sense if we play less because we are sharing our bandwidth thereby help bring down the distrubution cost.

One more way is the create your own internet television using platforms like http://www.getdemocracy.com/ [getdemocracy.com] where the user doesnt have to pay anything to view and one could make money based on advertisements. The cost of distrubtion woulld be low because the users are sharing their bandwidth.

Re:commercial p2p is a commercial failure

[Fearan]

This is completely true. Unless (until?) there is an incentive for users to keep their sharing programs opened, and keep providing their bandwidth, it just won't happen. Some incentives that work in the P2P community:
-Status --> This could work with companies. Somehow elevate "good" customers who share against the others.
-Feeling that you're doing something good-->I don't foresee people wanting to help companies with their bandwidth if they already paid for something
-Getting faster downloads --> only applies until you're done downloading.

I don't see how commercial P2P can work unless it bases itself on:
-Giving a solid reward ($$, free songs, etc...)
or a spyware like system that hides itself and doesn't fully make the (dumb) user aware that he's giving away something he paid for (twice now).