How the death of BitTorrent helped take the edge off broadband growth [The Washington Post]

Premature to proclaim “the death of BitTorrent” but still an interesting case study in fee-based service providers successfully competing with “free”

“So why the difference in growth between overall monthly data usage and peak-hour data usage? In part, it has to do with how we're getting our content. File-sharing through sites such as BitTorrent has plummeted in North America. It now accounts for less than 10 percent of total traffic during peak hours -- 10 years ago, it was 60 percent. So instead of downloading something whenever during the day to watch later, people have options like Netflix or Hulu, which they can just cue up after work. Streaming video tends to take up less bandwidth, since people only download as much as they watch rather than downloading the whole thing only to stop in the middle. And right now, "real-time entertainment" accounts for most of our evening Internet usage, with Netflix taking the lion's share.”

How the death of BitTorrent helped take the edge off broadband growth