This is my first time hearing about it too, but I don't see what you see. Where is the scam? What about privacy?
It seems like a good way of monetizing a site by creating something with intrinsic value to others (CDN capacity) out of something with next to no value to users (spare bandwidth). Sure beats the alternatives:
- ads: value=user's money that they manipulate them into spending. Additionally, they usually track people relentlessly and in turn use that data to manipulate them even better. No value is created, just money is transferred with extra steps.
- crypto miners: the value of (PoW) crypto is net negative (see environmental concerns), despite being profitable for some. They also decrease the user experience by draining batteries and slowing down computers. So no real value is created and negative value for users.
- micro-donations: they just transfer something of value (money) from the user to the operator. Nothing is "created", so users are by definition losing money. You can argue that things should cost money, but that's a separate discussion - value for users is still negative.
Of course I'd prefer this to be a vendor-neutral standard and not some private company, but none of the current "distributed web" solutions have gotten any serious level of adoption. This one actually got some attention since it's also a monetization platform - even if webmasters don't care about the distributed web idea, they still help get is closer.
Using resources that belong to the user (CPU time, RAM, disk space, battery) for you own needs without user's consent is very questionable.
On top of that, this p2p tools advertises the user's IP address to other peers without their consent. Furthermore, it allow other users to see what contents are cached and at what time in the day.
"Sure beats the alternatives" is in no way less scammy.
Sounds very scammy. Is this happening without user consent? What about privacy?