Why are people paying for BT?

[AugustoP]

Paying for filesharing is stupid especially when it comes to paying for scene releases, rewarding the leaders of great communities is not.

[mrnobody]

i haven't payed yet n i don't plan to do so in near future

In my opinion, people donate because they can

Seriously, i have heard people say "because i love the community and want it to stay there forever" but then i kinda find it awkward when a tracker is TOTALLY dependent in "donations" (i.e. they don't spend money from their own pocket at all) but enforces it's strict rule upon it's member. What for? i mean all they have is .torrent file upped BY members...they don't have anything of their own...except those scripts...which pretty much anyone can buy nowadays. That is one reason i love tracker as THC where they put their OWN money to run the site...and i dislike site as S*** who freaking pm/ mail me every week for donation...or even worse some foreign tracker (can't remember the name) take their server offline when there isn't enough donation....TL is a different story now

On the other hand, i think many people donate to stay out of trouble. Say, you donate in site as OiNK...where as many say staff are strict. If you make mistakes while upping torrent, forum post etc...mod/admin tend to forgive you because of that shiny lil star you got by ur name. In addition to that, for some unknown reason, which i never understood i have found donaters tend to get along with staff...or is it staff getting alone with donaters?

[spark]

I enjoy paying for BT! it makes me feel proud!

I enjoy donating but I enjoy p2l more...

Helping Trackers is something that all of you have to try!

[kaffeine]

People have different reasons for giving donations. I'm personally against p2l and p4i. However I would donate if I care for the community. People saying that BT sites don't have great communities didn't look harder (yes there are many with very poor communities, focused purely on the tracker, but there are a few with amazing members, helpful and with vast knowledge.

Look at FTN and FSC for example. People donate to these amazing communities just because they love them and want to support them, not because the files they get from them. And it's the same with other BT communities where you just want to show your appreciation for a great site that you belong. The reasons are completely different when paying for NG.

imo, donating to sites with p2l is not the best idea, especially if you're doing it only for the extra gigs you get. In that case, I would rather pay for NGs.

[Broken]

I kind of remember a site called Phoenix-Torrents.
Some of the guys that have been with BT since near the beginning will remember this one. At the time I think this place was still the K-lite forum (Kazaa based).

They had a great community, even I thought it was a great community and that's saying something. Thousands of users, hundreds of post every hour. It was one busy place.
Right after the original Supranova was taken offline, they decided that it was just too dangerous to run a tracker anymore. Because they had such a great community they didn't want to risk loosing it - heck the whole site was forum based anyways.

After a week they found out that the community they were so proud of was made up of about a dozen people. Soon after the site was taken offline.

Moral of the story....

(edit: I believe there is a new BT site called Phoenix-Torrents, an imitation and unrelated to the original in anything but name.)

[predateur]

i am donor on my favorite tracker and i am not idiot lol
i do it because i love the site, communitie, and what they do for us (when i donate its for the site not for mods or admine)
and to have good site without ads or pub ect...

[KSA]

That's why they called it communities, each one should have the community spirit, not only to chat in their IRC or post in their forums or seed their stuff, staffer's are working hard to operate their trackers, and provide their members with the scene releases even if they puts them selfs in risk to do that, so we should be thankful, and donate as much as we can, at least donate once for each respected tracker when u feel they r in need.

We are leeching many stuffs, which actually worth hundred of bucks out there, and we r getting them for free, so why we won't donate with only few bucks to them for god sake !!

[Defy]

People donate (people like me) because we really enjoy the tracker(s) that we're on. They're not demanding that you give them money, but if you truly appreciate the site you have the option to help out, even if it is only $5.

The only difference between a torrent site that allows donations and some other charitable event is, free stuff vs. a tax writeoff. Personally, I like free stuff. I'm not buying it either, because I never said I donated for upload credits or invites.

[TheFoX]

Two points worth mentioning now, and that is many online friends are friends at many communities. There are people I know here that I also know at other places. We tend to respond to each other likewise because we know of each other at each community.

It's a bit like the guy who frequents his usual public house, versus the guy who chooses a different venue each weekend. Some people stick with one community, while the majority of us will spread ourselves over several communities.

With reference to the Pheonix-Torrents demise, I remember the demise of UK-Fileshare, and how busy the IRC was. We also had a seperate forum running, and I know how many members disappeared after the demise. Simply put, the common bond between members is file sharing, and if you take that away, the bond will evapourate. Even on this forum, the underlying reason for people to be here is file sharing (esp. trading). Take that away and FST would fade away.

Believe me, though, when I formed my next community, I could draw on a wealth of members who wanted to join, simply because who had created it.

The other point I should raise is about donations and torrent commuities versus subscription news servers. The donation is purely that, a donation, and no one HAS to pay anything. When subscribing to a non free news group service (which usually has the best retention), you have to pay each month regardless of content you access. The free services often don't retain the material long enough, and in many cases will remove offending material a lot quicker than a paid for service.

On the subject of communities, what does make them desirable over using news groups? Is it because they are like private clubs where only members can access? Are smaller communities more desirable than larger ones? Is it because requests are filled much more quickly than a via a news group?

Why more people don't use news groups is the answer you wish to seek. News groups have been around longer than almost every other file sharing method (long before BT), yet it's popularity is not as great as BT. Why?

That is the question that should have been asked in the opening thread.

[Unstable1]

i happily donate money to my favourite trackers, its the least i can do to show my appreciation.