What.cd's ratio model was zero sum, so in order for you to get ratio, somebody else has to lose it. In Economic terms that means the entire "ratio economy" freezes up and its very hard to do much of anything.
It was a continual, deep flaw with the site that admins refused to acknowledge, i hope any successors keep it in mind.
Getting punished for actually using the site and seeding makes no sense whatsoever.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Babysitting_Co-op
edit: just explaining terms for non site members, but you're right, definitely something you need to get right. Too strict and the economy dies, too permissive and there isn't incentive.
They changed it to allow your ratio to dip well below the "required" ratio as long as you kept seeding. Keeping your ratio up wasn't strictly necessary anymore - though it was still required to keep your "rank" and the little perks that came with that. The admins did this largely in response to their inability to "fix" the ratio economy that overly disadvantaged people with low bandwidth.
Broadcasthenet still has no ratio requirements at all and is doing fine.
Their servers were raided by the French authorities.
Again, what is the point of a torrent site that punishes you for actually using it, even if you are fully willing to contribute via seeding, or albums, etc.
As a heavy user for years, sorry, the what.cd system was fundamentally broken if you didn't have a fast seed-box to slurp up ratio fron everyone else. Because its zero sum, the seedboxes win, and everyone else loses. Which is totally insane when bits are 100% free things that can be copied endlessly, isn't that the whole point of BitTorrent to begin with?!
You have to give a lot more than you take - and yes, seedboxes are doing more than you in the "giving" aspect.
Are they? Surely after a certain point, adding more bandwidth to the network doesn't make a difference. If you add another fast seedbox, maybe some people could download an album 5 seconds faster, but that's only if they could pay the ratio for the album in the first place, which they might not be able to if they weren't a seedbox user themselves. I think what.cd had more than enough seedboxes and that it probably would have been more important to the community to upload new 100% FLAC rips or seed unpopular or poorly seeded torrents than to add another seedbox that just auto-snatched popular/2016 releases and freeleech torrents.
> I was an Elite member (100GB+ upload), without any seedbox, within 2 weeks.
Remember, not everyone has a good enough home internet connection to do this. Back-of-the-napkin calculations say, even if I spent the whole time uploading at full speed, my shitty 0.5 Mb/s connection would still take more than 2 weeks to upload 100GB.
last time i checked 100GB of storage with 1-2TB caps at 1GB in and out was close to $5 month
You can pay in bitcoin if you're concerned about "privacy" but they all take paypal.
What use is a glorious library if you have to work there for free a few days a week before they let you read any of the books?
Fill a request whenever you need more upload. There are many low hanging fruits for 25-75GB and $15-35. Requests are "high value" uploads that don't rely on you seeding to multiple people, just uploading and claiming the reward. Very low effort and sometimes the requester even links you to where you can purchase the material.
Requested uploads hold more value to the community (or at least a single member) than {random local band that had two shows and gave out poorly mixed CD's one time}.
It was hard to maintain content long enough to seed if you want to consume content but don't have much disk space. And with just a laptop it can be hard to keep an internet connection to seed.
Eventually it became more effort than it was worth and I just used the top charts to find the music elsewhere. tbh I haven't since found a better source for high quality music recommendations.
the currency was upload
i only bought music so i could exchange it for a the more valuable upload it gave me.
gutted
Haven't been let down yet and I listen to a lot of rare experimental stuff.
I've been a WCD member since 2010. It was my first private tracker. I enjoyed the flavor of the WCD atmosphere, could taste the quality of volume after volume of the essential, goofy, ridiculous and down right trash this amazing site had to offer. What's the old saying? "One man's trash is another man's treasure". From sublime to sensuous; from ordinary to extraordinary; from books to manuscripts, with a keen eye and a sense of self worth, the world was at your fingertips. What.CD was more than just a music site on a private tracker. It was a community...a family! There were people who had resources of commonality and rarity that if you knew how to connect, maaan you had the world on a string.
I refuse to believe such riches are lost forever. WCD will be back in one form or another, and when it returns I hope to be there to greet the new with an open heart and open arms!
- My bandcamp feed - we have a great community of like minded music lovers over there. And while I keep track of new releases anyway, Bandcamp will notify me of new release by my favorite labels.
- Small, human curated, online record stores. Piccadilly Records, Soul Jazz Records, Norman Records, clone.nl, Pacific Beach Vinyl, Red Eye Records, Phonica. You don't have to buy there if you prefer digital releases - I do and still value the selection and recommendations.
- magazine / review sites. Testpressing.org, Pitchfork, Resident Advisor, Fact, Music Is My Sanctuary, Stomp The Wax, Inverted Audio, A closer listen and many more. Of course that's my taste, but there are sites catering to every niche music interest. Find yours.
And when it comes to buying I require lossless audio, which thankfully isn't a problem these days:
- Bandcamp
- Boomkat
- Bleep
- Qobuz
- Label stores
- Physical copies from online or local record shops if there isn't a digital release available.
Pretty much in that order.
For other music, I usually check http://dr.loudness-war.info/ for the best version and try to buy that from somewhere. Discogs used cds are a cheap and easy way to get the non-remastered versions delivered, stores like Qobuz usually only have the most recent remastering and nothing else.
Some artists like Björk have their best versions released only as rare double vinyl prints. For these what.cd was the only option if you didn't want to spend hundreds of euros to a couple of albums.
Yes, I'm not a fan of vinyl-only releases either. Whenever I have to buy vinyl, I do it rather reluctantly - while I actually like the idea of physical releases, I know I'll rip it, add it to my digital library and consume it from there. It's a necessity rather than a pleasure, but I'm not willing to pass on those Mood Hut or Music From Memory releases, let alone old rarities.
To me it's has always been the best recommendation engine ever, hands down, compared to all others (Spotify, Deezer, ecc).
It works by tracking what users with similar tastes are actually listening to (they call this feature scrobbling) which allows them to provide further recommendations and let you adventure on unexplored territory.
Then on your profile you will have a YouTube player playing all those recommendations, or a custom tag, genre, and so on.
It also has a great community where you can see how much you are musically compatible with other users.
I still used What.cd for music I wanted offline access to (for running, flights, etc.) as well as the occasional leak or obscurity. But before I got Spotify I was downloading multiple albums a day.
Maybe it's worse for recommending certain genres? I know my friend complains about its hardstyle recommendations.
2. /mu/ archive (sometimes obscure stuff can be found in sharethreads)
3. everywhere else (TPB, DC, Soulseek...)
4. Spotify for when I'm not at my machine
What.cd was an incredibly potent force for disseminating leaks. One can reasonably suspect that the closure of What.cd will slow the velocity of music piracy, and give more power to streamers/labels when it comes to marketing a new release.
I found high-fidelity versions of albums, singles and EPs I couldn't find anywhere else on What.cd. It was faster, more thorough, and cleaner than every other music resource (let alone torrent tracker) around. When I was young and broke, it was my primary way of engaging with music, discovering bands that I'd never heard of, and to this very day remained a crucial part of my music discovery "stack".
With that said, What.cd had been dying a slow death for a while now. With the rise of Spotify et al., the need for a private torrent tracker and the requisite accessories (seedboxes, external HDs) has been dimming. What.cd used to be far-and-away my #1 music resource; today it was probably the 3rd or 4th, suitable for finding obscure releases or ones unavailable on streaming sites because of byzantine licensing deals. Back in the day though, What.cd was THE SPOT for hearing popular releases before anyone else. Today, leaks are less prominent, as labels have gotten tighter about protecting their music, and musicians have gotten savvier and prefer to "leak stuff" themselves. For that reason, total download numbers on What.cd have been in decline for years, the community has gotten a bit quieter, although it's still been an extremely valuable resource to fill in the gaps between all the big music streamers.
A truly sad day. RIP What.cd. You will be missed.