> At the end of the day, allowing or not allowing
> BitTorrent-related software on their servers is a business
> decision.

Yes. People sometimes forget that we are, indeed, a business. We are pretty nimble as hosts go, but we've got bills and employees to pay and plenty of other features that people want to see implemented. Full BitTorrent 'support', as a feature, generates a small fraction the demand that other features have - even though it has historically caused us a lot of problems.

It is a matter of feasibility and focus. We're not pulling these reasons out of thin air: a disproportionate amount of admin time has been spent dealing with BT-related problems, time that would be (unless/until demand increases significantly) better spent elsewhere.

BT related activities that don't impact other customers are fine. Hosting raw and legal ".torrent" files is fine, as long as they're not associated with a CPU/memory hogging tracker script or whatever. People running BT clients or trackers on Dedicated servers are, again, fine (we track bandwidth on a per-server basis there - and they're not going to impact other customers - so it's all good).

The best thing that came out of the article is at the very end, wherein someone recommends simply finding a different host for this purpose. People sometimes need to realize that no host can be everything to everyone, and we've never claimed to be a BitTorrent-specific host. Our current focus lies elsewhere, and we've never claimed otherwise. Those needing more substantial BT support would be well advised to consider all of their options or be willing to hope that enough other DreamHost customers agree with them to make a good business case for us to support it.


- Jeff @ DreamHost
- DH Discussion Forum Admin