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Research Article

Impact of heterogeneity and socioeconomic factors on individual behavior in decentralized sharing ecosystems

Arnau Gavaldà-Miralles, David R. Choffnes, John S. Otto, Mario A. Sánchez, Fabián E. Bustamante, Luís A. N. Amaral, Jordi Duch, and Roger Guimerà
PNAS first published October 6, 2014 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1309389111
Arnau Gavaldà-Miralles
Departaments ad’Enginyeria Informàtica i Matemàtiques andbd’Enginyeria Química, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, 43007 Tarragona, Spain;Departments of cChemical and Biological Engineering,
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David R. Choffnes
dDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-2350; and
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John S. Otto
eElectrical Engineering and Computer Science, and
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Mario A. Sánchez
eElectrical Engineering and Computer Science, and
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Fabián E. Bustamante
eElectrical Engineering and Computer Science, and
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Luís A. N. Amaral
Departments of cChemical and Biological Engineering,fPhysics and Astronomy,gNorthwestern Institute on Complex Systems, andhHoward Hughes Medical Institute, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208;
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Jordi Duch
Departaments ad’Enginyeria Informàtica i Matemàtiques and
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  • For correspondence: jordi.duch@urv.cat
Roger Guimerà
bd’Enginyeria Química, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, 43007 Tarragona, Spain;iInstitució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), 08010 Barcelona, Spain
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  1. Edited by Alessandro Vespignani, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, and accepted by the Editorial Board September 10, 2014 (received for review May 31, 2013)

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Significance

The emergence of the Internet as the primary medium for information exchange has led to the development of many decentralized sharing systems. The most popular among them, BitTorrent, is used by tens of millions of people monthly and is responsible for more than one-third of the total Internet traffic. Despite its growing social, economic, and technological importance, there is little understanding of how users behave in this ecosystem. Because of the decentralized structure of peer-to-peer services, it is very difficult to gather data on users behaviors, and it is in this sense that peer-to-peer file-sharing has been called the “dark matter” of the Internet. Here, we investigate users activity patterns and uncover socioeconomic factors that could explain their behavior.

Abstract

Tens of millions of individuals around the world use decentralized content distribution systems, a fact of growing social, economic, and technological importance. These sharing systems are poorly understood because, unlike in other technosocial systems, it is difficult to gather large-scale data about user behavior. Here, we investigate user activity patterns and the socioeconomic factors that could explain the behavior. Our analysis reveals that (i) the ecosystem is heterogeneous at several levels: content types are heterogeneous, users specialize in a few content types, and countries are heterogeneous in user profiles; and (ii) there is a strong correlation between socioeconomic indicators of a country and users behavior. Our findings open a research area on the dynamics of decentralized sharing ecosystems and the socioeconomic factors affecting them, and may have implications for the design of algorithms and for policymaking.

  • human activity
  • Internet
  • content sharing
  • privacy
  • BitTorrent

Footnotes

  • ↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: jordi.duch{at}urv.cat.
  • Author contributions: A.G.-M., F.E.B., L.A.N.A., J.D., and R.G. designed research; A.G.-M., L.A.N.A., J.D., and R.G. performed research; A.G.-M., D.R.C., J.S.O., M.A.S., F.E.B., L.A.N.A., J.D., and R.G. analyzed data; and A.G.-M., D.R.C., F.E.B., L.A.N.A., J.D., and R.G. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. A.V. is a guest editor invited by the Editorial Board.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1309389111/-/DCSupplemental.

Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.

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User behavior in decentralized sharing ecosystems
Arnau Gavaldà-Miralles, David R. Choffnes, John S. Otto, Mario A. Sánchez, Fabián E. Bustamante, Luís A. N. Amaral, Jordi Duch, Roger Guimerà
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Oct 2014, 201309389; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1309389111

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User behavior in decentralized sharing ecosystems
Arnau Gavaldà-Miralles, David R. Choffnes, John S. Otto, Mario A. Sánchez, Fabián E. Bustamante, Luís A. N. Amaral, Jordi Duch, Roger Guimerà
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Oct 2014, 201309389; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1309389111
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