Is anyone else pissed at Rapidshare & the people who use

If you haven't noticed, it is now difficult during certain times to download from RS if you don't have a premium account. You get the following message:

"This file can only be downloaded by becoming a Premium member

There are no more download slots available for free users right now. If you don't want to become a premium member, you might want to try again later."

i'm mad at RS, but I'm much more mad at all of the suckers who gave this company so much power. I've been **** to use RS for years, but always thought (even back in 2005) that it wasn't the best web hosting site. what always amazed me was how foolish people were in actually getting a premium account. bypassing the wait between downloads (which used to be much longer) was and is easy if your IP isn't fixed. And the non-premium speeds were fine (especially at that time). and most important there were better (non-premium) alternatives available! for free!

what these RS suckers either don't know or don't care about is that the more market share they give RS the more they empower it to try to pull stunts like this to get people to get a premium account. i wouldn't be surprised if one day it blocked non-premium users completely. i for one won't ever get a RS, even if they do that.

so RS suckers make it more difficult for the rest of us when there were and are better free alternatives to RS. that pisses me off.

fully agreed

Okay - here we go again.

Name one other host that:
1. Will allow people to extend their account for points rather than just cash.
2. Is widely accepted as a permitted file host on different forums.

Give me the name of an alternative that fits those two needs and come to my house to migrate the 150-200 gigs of files I have online at RS to the new host and get special permission from my ISP to upload that much content in a few days (without shutting me down for bandwidth overuse) and I'll be happy to switch.

RagingBuddhist wrote:


you don't understand. i'm saying that, on balance, there was better reason to not join RS premium in the first place. so how can the fact that you can extend your RS premium by points justify getting RS premium in the first place? people got suckered into joining RS premium when it wasn't needed (unless perhaps they had a fixed IP address). and once that happened they got suckered into unwittingly helping to expand its market share, a market share that didn't reflect higher quality service. megaupload/megaporn is widely accepted as far as i know, and it has always been better.

james09 wrote:

No - you don't understand and I can't figure out why not. I joined Rapidshare because I don't have money to keep shelling out every time my month/3 months/year subscription runs out, just to keep my files alive. That doesn't seem attractive to you? But, if you really want people to move their files to another host, send them all...I don't know... about $500 so we can pay to have our files up and safe on another host for a few years. It's a simple choice that has nothing to do with market shares and whether or not I have a fixed IP address. What does a fixed IP address have to do with it anyway?

You can argue file hosts all you want - every host has it's issues. And I doubt I'm alone on this, but I definitely don't appreciate being called a sucker by someone who can complain about things but can't take the time to upload anything to help make the forum better. If you would upload, using Rapidshare, and found that you had enough points every month to keep your files alive without putting out any money beyond the first month, I think you'd change your tune. (Although I know you couldn't admit that now, after such a passionate tirade against the host of my choosing)

RagingBuddhist wrote:

i thought RS keep files alive if they are being downloaded (even if the uploader has no premium membership). At megaporn it was (and presumably still is) officially 90 days, but in practice sometimes much longer. if RS's policy is comparable, if your files aren't being downloaded at least once every few months do they really need to be kept alive?

this is what i'm trying to say. whether getting any premium account (from RS or any other site) is worth it depends on what the free versions are like. since some time in 2006 the free version of megaporn (then called sexuploader) has been pretty good, better than the free RS and other sites i know of. so as long as you don't have a fixed IP and so can bypass the wait between downloads (which as I said used to be much longer) -- if your IP is fixed you have to wait between downloads -- there was no real need to get any premium account at all. (but i understand that if we don't want annoying advertising some people would have to had joined to make the businesses profitable.) but if you had to get one I believe sexuploader (since it increased the speeds sometime in 2006) was a better choice (free continuing membership with enough downloads aside), for reasons including the much larger size limits it had (it was 350mb at the time). the point is that if any one site had to come to dominate the market based on quality service alone RS wasn't it. (i'd grant that it was a smart move on RS's part to offer free continuing membership based on downloads.) still it would have been better to spread the premium money around rather than let one site (even megaporn) come to dominate things the way RS has.

I had a Megaupload account once. I didn't like it. I prefer RS. Do you have a Megaupload or Megaporn account? If you do looking back through your posting history you don't appear to use it much. Like RagingBuddhist I can't afford to pay to renew my account every month so RS is ideal for me. Files on free accounts don't usually last very long. After going to the trouble of uploading and posting material I want longevity.

james09 wrote:
NO! You can't push that aside to continue to try to make your point. It's key to why I, and obviously others, use Rapidshare

Ever seen this message?


Error

This file is neither allocated to a Premium Account, or a Collector's Account, and can therefore only be downloaded 10 times.

This limit is reached.

To download this file, the uploader either needs to transfer this file into his/her Collector's Account, or upload the file again. The file can later be moved to a Collector's Account. The uploader just needs to click the delete link of the file to get further information.

That's what happens when you use the free uploading at RS.

And I'm done here. If you can't figure out why Rapidshare works for some people by now, you just won't get it. You'll just have to stay pissed off at 'em. And those that use it.

RagingBuddhist wrote:

i almost can't believe what i'm reading. this is my last response to you.

i'm saying that too many people unjustifiably started using RS only when its quality did not make it, alone, a standout from the crowd. that gave RS the power to do what it likes, like limit downloading from free uploads, deny free users downloading at certain times of the day, etc. and your response is that the free RS is so bad that no one should use it! if so many people didn't rush to use RS no there is no way it would have limited free uploading. you don't get it, and i'm done trying.

the bottom line is that people got suckered into helping make RS a near (quasi-)monopoly (when it wasn't the better than all competitors), and now we're (the non-premium users) suffering because of it.

It's one thing to voice your displeasure with a host, but when you start calling users of the service names you're crossing the line into flaming.
STOP IT!!!!!

james09 wrote:

First of all: Don't start flaming, no one is a "sucker", if he/she uses RS.

You get stuff for free, so you have to live with that.
Don't tell others, what hoster they have to use.
You don't like RS, fine. Download your (free) stuff somewhere else.

Start uploading and using another (allowed) hoster like MU and ask your friends to use it.
Maybe one day, MU will become larger, more powerful than RS (and I bet, if that happens, they will change their rules as well and become "evil", turn to the Dark Side of the Force).

If you want better service, you have to pay. That's all.
Free TV = commercials, Pay TV = no commercials (at least in Germany).

And by the way: Do you use XP/Vista/Win7?!?

If so why do you give M$ so much power to have the most used OS on PCs worldwide?!?

Monkey D. Ruffy

Rapidshare sucks for free users. It used to be pretty good, but it's now as bad as depositfiles. I don't begrudge people who are premium members and get all sorts of perks, but for free users it has declined a great deal in the past 3 years. Declining service does not make me want to get a premium account. It just seems like bad advertising to me.

DYasha wrote:

Sure, I was pissed off as well when I downloaded stuff from RS two years ago as a free user.

No download manager usage, waiting time and these damned captchas.

But that's what they want: to force you to buy a premium.
And due to the fact that I didn't want to pay all the time (bought one month, extended to another three), I started sharing.
Depends on the popularity of your stuff, you need round about 30-40 GB of stuff and your account is self-sustaining.

No need to pay anymore and download stuff with full speed.

Maybe I'll raffle an one month premium RS account soon.

Monkey D. Ruffy

File hosters are all the same, they want your money to download their files. Some of us found a way to get around this. Believe or not, I even profited from the 6 month premium account investment I made. Nowadays, the premium points value is down, less than 1 euro per 1000 points, which means there are a lot of premium users. There's no way of telling how these premium users got their accounts but it seems there are a bunch from this forum who got theirs free. Since there are tons of premium users lately, free users have to be turned down by the hoster and I am sorry if you are one of them.

I'm just wondering what will happen if this trend continue. The changes in policy at RS just tell me, they are having a huge traffic going on. Pretty soon, the longevity of files uploaded will get shortened to 30 days, the free premium account for points and other programs will disappear. It will be the end of the world, LOL. Sorry guys, I do not mean to wish these things, but we may come to that stage. Just enjoy the freebies while we can.