Twenty years ago a then relatively unknown programmer named Bram Cohen single-handedly sparked a new file-sharing revolution. At the time, social

BitTorrent Turns 20: The File-Sharing Revolution Revisited

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2021-07-03 04:00:07

Twenty years ago a then relatively unknown programmer named Bram Cohen single-handedly sparked a new file-sharing revolution. At the time, social media had yet to be invented, but BitTorrent never needed likes to go viral. The file-sharing protocol sold itself and soon conquered the Internet.

“My new app, BitTorrent, is now in working order, check it out here,” Bram Cohen wrote on a Yahoo! message board on July 2, 2001.

This was probably one of the more underwhelming software launches in history. The official website, consisting of a few lines of HTML code with black text on a white background, didn’t impress either. Nothing hinted at the powerhouse BitTorrent would soon become.

While BitTorrent lacked a fancy PR channel, its creator made up for that with coding inventiveness. Cohen previously worked for the startup behind the MojoNation peer-to-peer network. That project eventually ran out of money so the then 25-year old developer went on to focus on his own file-sharing protocol.

Cohen certainly wasn’t the only programmer in this niche. At the time, file-sharing was booming and dozens of new applications were popping up. Napster had already laid the groundwork and, with MP3s getting more popular by the day, sharing was hot.

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