Sunday, December 11th 2011
uTorrent Goes Freemium: $24.95/Yr Option For Extra Features
Well, it looks like the freemium model of selling software is working quite well in the industry, as Bram Cohen's very popular BitTorrent application, uTorrent, has just adopted this model. Known for being fast, efficient and light on system resources, it has now gained a few pounds, sorry features in version 3, some of which are available only for a subscription of $24.95 per year. These include things like an antivirus scanner powered by BitDefender, a media player and integrated support for converting popular video file types such as MPEG4, H.264, Theora, and VP8, as well as MP3, AAC and AC-3 audio files. The media player is interesting, in that it allows playback of videos that are still downloading. Note that this feature is also available in the free version.
For those that still want to hang on to the lean and mean free version, it's still available and isn't going away any time soon. Both versions can be compared here. Perhaps it's ironic that this legal application which is often used for software "piracy" can now itself be pirated… Cohen's take on this will be interesting.
Source:
TechSpot
For those that still want to hang on to the lean and mean free version, it's still available and isn't going away any time soon. Both versions can be compared here. Perhaps it's ironic that this legal application which is often used for software "piracy" can now itself be pirated… Cohen's take on this will be interesting.
92 Comments on uTorrent Goes Freemium: $24.95/Yr Option For Extra Features
with taxes and everything considered he needs around 2000 subscribers to make somewhat of a living. if he worked fulltime for a big software developer he could easily make much more, unless a miracle happens and he gets about 10k+ subscribers
he should have patented the bt algo and extorted $$ from everyone who uses it
I prefer to pick out my own selection of AV, conversion SW, and media player+codecs and remote access SW
nt uTorrent, gg
I think this should be interpreted as a way of encouraging contributions. He's not stupid, he knows people will pirate it, but he wants to make it obvious that he's put some work in and perhaps deserves a reward, and he estimates that is product is worth $24.95 per year of use.
What do pirates do? Not pay for things. Good luck with this business model!
You can already stream through utorrent, you can convert videos just by downloading a program from else where most people have an anti virus already.
Man this guy is going to get like tens of sales!
Ok so apparently you all pay for media players and converters? I did not know this. :confused:
I guess they want us to BUY media players and BUY converters. Some of us might pay for AV but you sure don't pay $50 a year, or probably even pay, you might just use utorrent to get it.
Talk about a failed business model, this guy is an idiot.
Just have to remember to hit it as soon as it's starting to download other wise your just wasting banding downloading in a willy nilly order.
Seems quite useless to me. I doubt the majority users of utorrent are going to pay for this as the whole reason they are using utorrent is to get free software.
Personally I stopped using torrents years ago. Not worth it.
I believe the majority of open-source/free (Linux) software are distributed through torrent. It helps reduce server cost.
Regarding open source software, a ton of it is distributed via torrent, and for that reason I still have a torrent client installed. Although I am paranoid enough to use it in conjunction with I2P even if the content is open source.
Torrent has its use.
In fact, I see a lot of big name companies using it to distribute their patches such as Blizzard, THQ, EA, and more.
The downloader that they use is just a simple torrent client.