P2pnet.net stops, can’t find funding to continue

Over the course of last week, p2pnet’s admin Jon Newton wrote several emotional posts in which he announced to quit his blog, as he ran out of money.

That p2pnet quits is a shame. Critical blogs like Newton’s play an important part in the transition process that the entertainment sector goes through while getting to grips with the finesses of online environments. It’s the blogs like p2pnet that point producers and distributers of content to their weak spots, enabling them to improve their services, even if that doesn’t happen at the speed that many would want. In that sense, these blogs pose a threat more to file-sharing than the entertainment industry.

Newton doesn’t adhere to that view, as one of his last posts testifies. “As I’ve just said in emails, I believe p2pnet going down is significant at a time when government and corporate corruption is bad and getting worse, and when voices speaking out in the name of freedom are few and getting fewer.”

That Newton quits because of a lack of funding is ironic. One of the most outspoken people supporting the culture of free, finds out rather unpleasantly that a business model is of vital importance if one strives towards continuity.

“I need a bare minimum of $3,500 Canadian a month to survive. A very large lump of that is for a mortgage and another large lump is for debt I incurred to keep p2pnet going when there was no income. The rest is for food, gas, electricity, water, and so on.”

If I can find four people with $10,000 each to spare, they can become equal partners, with me, in p2pnet. Or eight people with $5,000. Or 16 people with $2,500. Or 32 people with $1,250. Or 64 people …

It is a true shame that a blog, offering vocal and well articulated opposition to the powerful lobbies of Big Entertainment, is now victim to the issue that has withheld that same industry to embrace the Internet as distribution channel of choice.

4 February 2010