I wanted to check out a file today and was redirected to Fileplanet.com to download it. FilePlanet has this new system in place. You can pay them and then you can download files immediately or you can get in the queue to download it from one of their public servers. If you choose public a window pops up, probably using some Javascript and counts down the minutes until you get your turn to download. When I tried it it said there were 123 people in the queue and that it would be approximately 14 minutes until downloading started.

On the one hand it seems kind of lame but on the other hand it seems like a good solution to the problem of bandwidth. All these sites hosting free demo files, movie files, trailer files etc.

I've been wondering how they could afford it. Originally it was supposed to be by ads but that didn't work so this seems like the logical progression. I wonder how many people will pay.

It's pretty sad how few people pay for Kuro5hin.org I guess but then I don't pay either so they must not give me something I can't get for free or cheaper somewhere else. Same with Salon.com