Several weeks ago we featured a new ratioless general tracker named StoreThe.Net (STN). Due to it’s great pre times, seedbox hosted torrents and the high amount of torrents uploaded daily, the tracker was an instant hit among many torrenters. Their latest move however might not become as popular. STN will soon be switching to an ‘sponsorship model’ where users will have to pay in order to continue being a member. That’s not all – they’ll soon be launching a host of new services including one that converts leaked E-books to hardbound books. A summary of upcoming changes and services (according to Yocto, the site’s admin) is given below:

StoreThe.Net

STN switches to sponsorship model E3.00 for 6 months (or longer, depends on how many sponsor make a pledge).
STN launches www.yoctogon.com and is an ovh reseller, OVH pricing and information will be online on Saturday.
STN launches ebook/pdf to REAL hardbound book.
STN will announce the launch of scene2web.com in a week or so.

There’s a lengthy post on STN’s forums describing in detail the changes site will undergo - so we won’t advertise it here again. But it all comes down to this; those who become sponsors will retain membership of the tracker (with additional benefits) while accounts of those who don’t pay will be deleted after a maximum of 28 days.

There has already been a lot of negative feedback regarding STN’s sponsorship model on various BitTorrent forums such as TPS and FST. I saw a thread on FST which even called for a boycott on P2L trackers such as Vizz.Tv and STN. STN’s admin (Yocto) however has a different take on P2L (Pay-To-Leech - a widely flamed concept among Bit torrent communities). This is what he wrote on STN forums, as reply to a question raised there:

There is not a single site that is bit-torrent (p2p) that is not p2l
Here is my logic.
Sites that sell donations (SCT, etc) are p2l
Sites that have ads are p2l
Sites that you click on anything or are forced to view something are p2l
sites that are ratio based are p2l (as you pay with your bw that costs you something).
So there are NO sites that are p2p that aren't p2l, because p2p is inherently p2l.

I (the writer of this post) personally think STN going P2L was/is a bad idea but hey, no one is pointing a gun to my head and forcing me to pay. The decision whether or not to become a sponsor, after all is up to the site’s users. On a side note, this kind of operation has a higher likelihood of attracting law enforcement’s attention than the usual scenarios. This would also cause some folks in the warez scene to go bonkers (well they already hate P2P anyways but I don’t think monthly subscriptions for scene content will be an idea they’ll love). Whatever happens, I hope STN and its users can and will be able to stay safe.


14 Comments

  1. Anonymous // 11/15/2009 12:52:00 AM  

    FNB: Why give this site publicity that it doesn't deserve?

    I hope that STN is NOT safe, I hope it DIES. NOW. For all our sakes.

  2. BEARTAX2 // 11/15/2009 01:24:00 AM  

    torrentvault.org > STN

  3. TEAM FILEnetworks // 11/15/2009 01:25:00 AM  

    @sun,
    Now that you mention it, TorrentVault giveaway tomorrow :)

  4. DP // 11/15/2009 03:16:00 AM  

    stn can lick my ballsack. I hope yocto chokes on his donations and dies

  5. samister // 11/15/2009 04:21:00 AM  

    This is stupid decision, since there's so many trackers liek this one, and some of them are open for public that are not bad at all and with more torrents that this tracker.
    There are so many other options to reduce the load on the trackers server but maybe they do not how to do it.
    ... to bad one more tracker is going down due to a stupid decisions.

  6. Unknown // 11/15/2009 06:33:00 AM  

    @TEAM FILENETWORKS

    hi this is 'derek'

    site exdesi.com is not opening
    --
    502 Bad Gateway error

    plz acknoledge

    thank you

  7. Anonymous // 11/16/2009 12:15:00 AM  

    Yocto, you're so wrong on p2l.
    Here's some ex. of p2p trackers which deserve all the respect and don't even accept donations/they don't have ads etc. : rSR, TvT.ro, docs and the list can go on.
    All the best to everyone.
    (:

  8. Anonymous // 11/16/2009 03:20:00 AM  

    way to shoot yourself in the foot yocto (not to mention everyone else on your tracker)

    He says he is NOT deleting the accounts of people who don't want to be there...stupid fuck

  9. Unknown // 11/16/2009 06:09:00 AM  

    Did anyone here with an ScT account get it for free? I didn't; I had to buy it, and that's usually the only way ScT allows invites to be distributed. It helps them pay for their server costs. In fact, they just ended a 2-for-1 invite/Upload credit special because they need to pay for their new server somehow. ScT accounts generally cost 20 euros minimum. STN is asking for 3 euros per 6 months. If you managed to get all your high tier invites for free, good for you, but not a lot of people end up making good friends with someone willing to part with such highly sought after invites, and no, I don't have the time to sit around in l33t IRC channels praying for the year I get handed an FTN or ScT invite for free. For me, buying very-hard-to-get invites is worth it. The return I get on that small investment is huge and fun. And I think the cost generally benefits the tracker in question, because who wants to blow 30 bucks on an invite and then not give a $h!t if the account gets banned? Not me.

    And STN isn't redundant as far as content. There's releases ScT TL and FTN won't post that STN will. If you need good pre-times and a really wide range of content, it's a good idea to include STN among your high tier trackers.

  10. zoomby // 11/16/2009 05:59:00 PM  

    well josh its saddistic dat u have 2 buy it. u should better opted for a friend or invite share forums.

    Any way Gonna start leeching till my acc get banned :p

  11. gondola done dola // 11/16/2009 09:47:00 PM  

    @zoomby,
    No worries. Rapidshare points more than make up for all my file sharing costs.

  12. Hellouser // 11/20/2009 01:07:00 AM  

    What if this is all just some sort of idea to build hype or just a really strange social experiment?
    thats what im starting to hear.

  13. grapher // 12/06/2009 08:48:00 PM  

    my old StoretheNet account is not working

  14. Josh Carlson // 2/25/2010 03:50:00 AM  

    Someone really did a number on STN. Any news on if Yocto's given up, or is he still trying to rebuild his site?