Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

If not, maybe it's time for a web-based BitTorrent of some kind. The important thing is that file sharing would go back to being a download-only operation which would (ideally) free fans from the threat of disconnects and lawsuits. This is all well beyond anything I could ever do, which is why I ask about it here. To me, this is the inevitable future of the web.

Don't take this the wrong way but, are you trolling?

EDIT: Also, Mad Men's on Netflix streaming, off the top of my head.




No I'm definitely not trolling, but I get that a lot :-)

I've seen several papers and presentations about web-based hashing schemes, where the idea is that you only have to download data once to a city and then people could download using a hash from a local cache server and avoid trips over the backbone:

http://www8.org/w8-papers/2a-webserver/caching/paper2.html

For example, if they did this with netflix, you'd be downloading from your neighbors instead of a server somewhere, and the load on your service provider would drop by orders of magnitude.

Also, since so little traffic would have to go over the whole web, they could focus more on last mile speed increases and we could all have 100 megabit lines and cheaper plans, getting charged mostly for our backbone traffic, the way long distance used to be charged.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: