Morgwen, you perfectly described the dilema of gnutella!

> The truth is I never have disconneted from gnet, but if I had a modem today I would do it.
> 12 MB for the price of half of my bandwidth!

That's the way freeloader think, and actually I can understand and feel with them very well!

The problem is gnutella works only through sharing.... let me repeat: gnutella works only through sharing! Once again? When more people do only suck files (because it's faster and cheaper), less files are shared, more busy slots, gnutella will not work. Sorry. gnutella is NOT the web.... it lives from the members. So... when we wanna keep gnutella alive, we have some possibilites IMHO:

* Gnutella client developer should encourage users to be part of the network, encourage people to share and avoid freeloading options where possible. (e.g. never allow to disable uploads, at least allow a small upload ratio something similar as Xolox does).

* Gnutella client developer should think about new possibilities to make modem users a valuable part of the gnutella network. (e.g, meshing alla swarmcast = braking files into smaller parts, spread allover the network, which even modem useres can easily provide).

I have my ideas more detailed in a older german document (here), if I have more time I will translate it.

So long my friend, Moak

PS: Let me say what is NO solution against freeloader: A client developer could easily modify the clients, so that only DSL and high speed user can share with each other (by testing bandwith). Then all those whining modem users "I need to freeload and that is f*cking cool" will have no files anymore and cry loud to heaven - while all the high speed users can suck like god in highspeed heaven! So dude, do you understand what I'm trying to say: Gnutella is very friendly to modem users right now... but gnutella does not need them. Definitely gnutella should use them in future (valuable bandwith rescources are wasted right now!), see about swarming above. Grin, this should not be the future: