Tron is going to eat Facebook, YouTube and Netflix and maybe Viacom, Comcast and Disney should be added to this list. Is this an overstatement? Yes it is, but Tron’s move deserves some attention. So now I have your attention, let’s dive into the acquisition of BitTorrent by Tron and why it makes sense to me.

BitTorrent

BitTorrent is undoubtedly the best and most successful decentralized distribution system I know. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on which side you are, BitTorrent is also used to illegally distribute digital entertainment content. You get free content but nobody makes money. At the end this is a dead end.

For me this has always been a sign that the demand for entertainment is higher than the traditional channels can provide. Meaning, the traditional channels’ insufficiency leads to a price higher than people are willing to pay for it. Insufficient because they cannot find a way to increase the volume to lower the price.

Smart Contracts and hosting

But what if you add smart contracts for the people that created the content, hosting the content and downloading the content? You will get a new ecosystem that is not free but definitely cheap because your distribution costs and income are 100% automatically divided without the need of numerous third parties. BitTorrent is already a successful peer to peer system. And as a peer, if you get paid for hosting a file, you will invest in better equipment.

Content Distribution and Creating

Distributing your content can become as easy as adding a file with a smart contract to an ecosystem that takes care of the rest. Transaction will be supported by blockchain technology (Tron of course). And if this system would also have functionality to generate funds, independent movie makers will be ecstatic.

Traditional Broadcast industry

We have to see this acquisition against the background of the loss of the traditional broadcast industry. Traditional broadcasting is dying out together with the baby boom generation, if not sooner. Kids consume most of their content on social networks and don’t turn on the television anymore as in:

I sit around and watch the tube but, nothing’s on

I change the channels for an hour or two (Longview, Green Day)

Upcoming years,TV content will move to IP Video on Demand (VOD) or IP Live streaming. As also 4K and 8K formats gain popularity, we will see a tremendous explosion of data traffic. Due to this data explosion central distribution of content will not be sufficient anymore. Peer to Peer distribution is a solution but only if there is a revenue model for the makers of content.

So Tron acquiring BitTorrent seems like a logical step. Details of the deal are unknown to me but BitTorrent’s knowledge and experience in itself is definitely a worthwhile investment.

I always thought that some kind of combination of Tron and Sia would be a good alternative for decentralized content distribution. But the combination of Tron and BitTorrent is even better. Although Tron’s journey is still long, this is definitely a step in the right direction.