Locked Files - Arguments Against and Solutions Proposed

[Dynamitri TV]

OK, this is going to be quite a lengthy post so apologies if it comes across as ranting at some points, but bear with me.

Can we please either get rid of the functionality that allows people to lock files?

I get the initial idea that stood behind implementing this: protecting people with a lot of files or good collections from leeches and all that. It's entirely clear, however, that the functionality doesn't work as intended anymore.

I've been on SoulSeek for almost 20 years, I share anywhere between 30K and 500K files (depending on whether I'm running on my local drive or my external is plugged in). Initially I feel it was a great community, where people would talk to each other, exchange releases, and happily allow other collectors/crate diggers to get what they were looking for. You could meet DJs, music journalists, music historians, even some academics and increase your knowledge of music new and old and explore discographies, catalogues, genres, the whole thing. 

20 years since launch, however, the user base has considerably dwindled - in some ways due to proliferation of streaming services like Spotify, Deezer, Tidal etc. that offer similar convenience that makes it good enough for an average user, in some ways due to perceived threats from copyright societies and ISPs hunting for uploaders/sharers and people being scared of being served notices or even being taken to court (whether it's reasonable and justified concern -- doesn't matter). 

Months of heavy usage of the app in recent period have clearly shown to me a huge issue plaguing the network at the moment: a ton of music (historic albums, cd/vinyl single rips, some new music as well etc) is only shared by one, two, three people - literally no more than a handful of users - and they all have their files locked down, and never, ever-ever respond to private messages, no matter how hard you try and how nicely you ask.

Other type of users that have cropped up, are people trying to sell what essentially are pirated releases - which is absurd, and goes against the whole spirit of what Soulseek started as and has been for so many years. The whole point is to let the music circulate, especially the older one that is not seen as priority content for copyright holders, or might not even have the copyright holders actively invested in what's happening with the music (case in point with underground cassette releases, obscure, local hip-hop from the '90s and so on and so forth).

I appreciate that many users don't want to leave their connections open because of leechers and people just loading up hundreds of releases while not sharing themselves. It's frustrating, but to be honest I feel that the whole "fuck you, got mine" mentality has reached a tipping point now. I've got a few hundreds positions on my wishlist, my Soulseek is on and laptop running pretty much 24/7/365, for months I cannot find music that would be shared by someone who would not have their files locked and who would respond to the messages at the very least.

Alternatively, users who pay for Privileges should be able to bypass the whole locked files system, just as they are able to bypass the Queue. I've been supporting Soulseek with payments for a long, long time, but I'm less and less happy to do so because - while I appreciate Nir's work on development and maintaining the app - even though I pay I can't get the music I'm looking for anyway. The platform is awesome, but what's the point in paying if I still can't download - can't even get in a Queue if the files are locked - and my DMs come to no response whatsoever?

On top of that, I'm quite sure that being able to bypass the lock would encourage more people to pay, because that would be a great Privilege worth paying for. Skipping the queue - meh. 

Whether people with really good collections would simply leave then - possibly, but remains to be seen. Then again, what's the point in them being on the platform anyway, since they clearly do not share, and do not respond to messages and are not interested in participating and being the part of the community? Might as well drive them out, if people paying for the Privileged access to the platform and being able to get the files is the be all and end all of everything to them - godspeed.

One way or another, something's got to give, I feel. Soulseek is not what it used to be anymore, and not addressing the issue of a dwindling user base, along with files not circulating within the network due to more and more people simply getting stuff from others but not sharing themselves once they build up a collection, only makes the matters worse.

[eltestd...@gmail.com]

I think the cat is out of the bag on this issue: if you remove the locked files feature from the official client, unofficial clients will implement it in some other way and those who want to lock their files will move to those clients.

[Dynamitri TV]

What are the unofficial clients that are still going? I thought there was only Soulseek QT.

Either way, you could perhaps only allow Soulseek QT to connect to the network - some sort of an authentication process. To be fair, I'm quite surprised that at this day and age there's a loophole that allows third party software on the server - granted, might allow for additional functionality (which is the white hat side of things), but also makes it ripe for abuse and exploitation through unapproved tools and software not coming from the original developers of the main app and designers of the whole network.