BitTorrent was once a dominant factor in streaming and was one of the largest sources of traffic on the web. Now, after a dedicated effort to combat BitTorrent piracy and new better options, BitTorrent traffic continues to fall.
In 2011, 18.8% of North American traffic was BitTorrent traffic, but in 2016 BitTorrent traffic has dropped to just 1.73% of total downstream traffic in North America. BitTorrent traffic is now behind Facebook, Xbox One Game Downloads, and the big streaming services of Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon.
One of the main factors in the drop of BitTorrent is probably one of the most overlooked factors. Yes, many people have been sued for BitTorrenting and some people may have been turned off by that. Some sites that helped you find torrents have been shut down but others have popped up.
No, the real reason BitTorrent traffic continues to fall is the fact that you can now legally and cheaply access a wide range of great content. New services, such as Sling TV and PlayStation Vue, give people live access to cable channels. Hulu has expanded their service to include more content as has Amazon Prime Video.
If content owners want to fight piracy what they need to do is to continue to offer legal options at a fair price for their content.
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