Once a popular destination for illegal movies and TV shows, Popcorn Time has closed. First released in 2014, the desktop software allowed users to stream the latest American movies and TV shows in high quality, causing headaches for several streaming giants. In fact, Netflix even warned investors about Popcorn Time in its 2015 financial report. According to Bloomberg, CEO Reed Hastings had stated, "Piracy remains one of our biggest competitors." The publication adds that the group behind the software emailed to reporters declaring the end.
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The Popcorn Time website has also been updated with 'RIP' (rest in peace). A graph on the site shows that site performance started to decline after 2016. Interestingly, there was a slight increase in viewership in 2020, which is when the COVID-19 virus began to spread globally. In 2014, Popcorn Time also closed after the original developers left the platform; however, many replicas began to emerge thanks to the open source architecture. The application relied on the BitTorrent protocol for peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing. Basically, it allows users to distribute and download data over the internet in a decentralized way.
However, it appears that the current Popcorn Time developers (Popcorn-Time. Tw or sometimes .to) are shutting down the services due to a drop in user base. The drop in user base can be attributed to many factors, but mainly due to legal hurdles and constant changes in URLs. Former Popcorn Time users also complained about slow and interrupted streaming despite getting good video quality. Speaking to TorrentFreak, the Popcorn Time team says that dwindling interest from the pirate public led them to make this drastic decision.
End of the torrent?
However, the end of Popcorn Time doesn't mean a battle won by streaming giants like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney Hotstar. Website and app may come back in some other way due to open source compilation. Also, there are still popular torrent sites like YTS where users can download movies up to 4K resolution. These sites are also accessible via VPN and proxy sites in India.
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