A few weeks ago Peter Sunde was released from prison where he’d been serving a sentence for his involvement in The Pirate Pay.
Peter is one of the few people who paid the ultimate price of sacrificing his freedom for the site but he isn’t mourning its recent troubles. In fact, Sunde would prefer it if the site shut down permanently.
TF spoke with Peter this morning and he told us that the site has long since served its purpose.
TPB’s main aim was to bring BitTorrent to the masses, a goal that was completed years ago. According to Peter the site has gone downhill in recent years up to a point where it turned into a soulless cash cow.
Peter, often referred to as one of Pirate Bay’s co-founders, wrote about his sentiments in a recent blog post.
“The Pirate Bay has been raided, again. That happened over 8 years ago last time. That time, a lot of people went out to protest and rally in the streets. Today few seem to care. And I’m one of them,’ he writes.
The Pirate Bay was founded as a platform to allow people to share and copy whatever they want without restrictions. However, in recent years very little progress was made, Peter notes.
“The site was ugly, full of bugs, old code and old designs. It never changed except for one thing – the ads. More and more ads were filling the site, and somehow when it felt unimaginable to make these ads more distasteful, they somehow ended up even worse.”
The former Pirate Bay spokesman is happy to see the site on its knees. After it was handed over to the new crew a few years ago the site lost its soul, he believes.
That said, Peter regrets that it has gone down like this. The plan had always been to pull the plug after 10 years, so others could take over. However, when that day came last year the site remained online.
“A planned retirement would have given the community time and a way to kick off something new, something better, something faster, something more reliable and with no chance of corrupting itself. Something that has a soul and can retain it,” Peter notes.
This sentiment is not really new. Peter and others argued the same in the past.
The big question that remains right now is whether The Pirate Bay will make another comeback, or if this is indeed the end. Peter seems to believe that the latter may be the case, but that others will fill the gap.
“From the immense void that will now fill up the fiber cables all over the world, I’m pretty sure the next thing will pan out. And hopefully it has no ads for porn or viagra. There are already other services for that,” Peter concludes.
