"Because fast and happy", open the Thunder Member Center page

A Thunder member proposed screenshot shows, download speed only 88kb/s about, and his signing bandwidth is 22M.

"Because fast and happy", open the Thunder Member center of the page, the first thing to look at is that these few eye-catching characters.

But from May 1 onwards, the well-known Internet download service provider's 4 million paid members, they are not happy, "because fast and happy" the four words more like a satire-because the Thunderbolt internal technology and service adjustment, led to the rapid decline in the speed of Thunder members download, Some members download speed and even fell to 80%, which for those who paid 10 yuan-150 yuan or even more fees of the members, is simply unbearable facts, have asked the Thunderbolt to pay compensation, a thunderbolt and members of the refund dispute from this.

Thunderbolt member Request refund

May 5, the reporter opened the Thunder Service Forum, was full screen of protest stickers and money-back stickers were startled, from beginning to end are all members request a refund of the post. Some posts not only ask for money back, but also illustrated by the Thunder download a large shrinkage of evidence, from the evidence that from the end of April, the speed of the Thunder download service began to drop sharply, the decline is generally more than 50%, cloud broadcasting function can not be normal operation. And some members complained that the contents of the offline space was deleted without reason, and claimed compensation for the loss.

Reporter in a network ID called "2nd" member posts to see that this member is using more than 8MB broadband, but in the download of a size of 48.15GB Japanese anime files, download speed only 3kb/s. Sichuan Telecom's Thunder member "Hl84stone" in the post issued a picture, showing is downloading a 55.26MB size QQ software, the net speed only 88.30kb/s, at the same time he also posted another with China Telecom Business Hall to verify signing bandwidth of the picture, The picture shows this member's network bandwidth reaches 22M. Another is called "Airfinsh" member, then posted another picture, showing is now a bitcomet_x86_setup.exe software, download speed only 10.71kb/s.

For members ' requests, Thunderbolt has not given a formal reply, just in the forum over and over and over again to tell everyone: "Respect for the user, hello: Thank you for your attention to the thunder of all the dynamic, please feel free to pay attention to the Thunder official website and Thunder, all the official forum of Thunder, all to the Thunderbolt, Do not spread and rumors of all bad thunder reputation of things, thank you for the Thunder support. ”

The reporter contacted many cloud broadcast user to carry on the test, most users have not encountered the question in their own offline resource playback, "" Inception of the space, "" Rio Big Adventure "," zombie Sean "These can be played correctly, and for the small resources of the test also did not find the so-called" large area can not play "problem. However, there are also individual users who indicate that the popular resources previously downloaded indicate that the download connection is incorrect or require a longer transcoding time, while the video in the transcoding is not progressing while the download is displayed in the cloud.

The reporter then conducted a simple test. Test environment for China Telecom 20MB Fiber broadband, Thunderbolt VIP Prestige version, version number 2.0.10.190, as a Platinum Member login thunderbolt began to download.

The reporter has selected the computer games, the old movie, the newest movie, the software program and the dispute video five kinds to carry on the downloading.

In the download "StarCraft 2" game files, smoothly into high-speed channels and offline accelerated download, speed quickly reached the 2.47mb/s, download QQ software, the speed reached 1.78mb/s, the latest Hollywood blockbuster "Captain America 2" Download speed is reached 2.69 MB/s, Only download a 1985 Hong Kong comedy "Wisdom Yong Sambo" when the network speed to 1.37mb/s, and the last time the reporter chose to download a sensitive video, download speed dropped to 252.12kb/s, high-speed channel and off-line acceleration did not play any role.

Reporter in a simple test after a statistic, Thunderbolt download stable speed for 1.72mb/s. And this before the beginning of April, in this environment average download speed can reach 2.25mb/s, network download speed has a certain reduction, but the amplitude is not very large.

The Thunder members reflect the two problems of the comparison concentration, one is the problem of the cloud broadcast function, one is off-line acceleration and the high-speed downloading channel loses the function.

In a journalist's test, these two problems do exist, but they vary by download. The general video Cloud broadcasting function can operate normally, only the individual video cloud broadcast function has the malfunction. And some video offline downloads may appear offline accelerated file reported phenomenon, can not download offline faster.

A deleted open letter

A deleted open letter

The Thunderbolt's silence lasted until May 6, in this day, the Thunder Operation team finally issued an open letter in the official forum "Sorry, we came late--to the recent member adjusts the open letter".

The open letter first admitted that as a result of the national net action requirements, Thunderbolt made a series of adjustments, may affect the quality of the download service.

The thunderbolt aspect has made clear to "those who lets the human vision open, the hair upright, the pore enlargement, blood Zhang, the shocking excitement film, we observe the national legal shield".

In order to appease the Thunderbolt member, the Thunder aspect puts forward:

1. Today or tomorrow (6th or 7th) On-line open Day, this time we do not accept the money, only accept the opinion. We offer 1-month membership + 1-month pay movies for every member who offers advice, good or bad, and how much text. In these 1 months, we try to change the problem as much as possible;

2. Technical upgrading, in line with national laws and regulations, to provide you with the accelerated service not to be lost before (for 1 months to complete);

3. The introduction of a low-cost, functional restrictions, for occasional downloads, cloud-seeding users to use the package;

4. With the resources of Thunder, with other Internet services in exchange for more quality service, free to the Thunderbolt members, so that members of higher value, lower prices;

But surprisingly, within a few hours of the open letter, the Thunderbolt authorities quickly removed it from the forum. Then there was another open letter, "Sorry, we are late-opening day, only comments, with the January member."

May 7, the reporter contacted a Thunder public relations related responsible person, has carried on the simple dialogue.

Computer: Why did the cloud-seeding function have problems with net-net action?

Thunderbolt: Our technology and product upgrades, net action initiatives mainly on the Reference forum that statement.

Computer: Some netizens said that Thunder took the means of speed limit.

Thunderbolt: Impossible, the Thunderbolt has not taken any speed limit measures, cloud seeding technology upgrades, may affect the user, but now there is no problem.

Computer: Can you tell us whether we are in the content Audit link to increase the manual audit, so that the membership experience discounts, such as download speed.

Thunderbolt: Sorry, I really do not know this.

Computer: If a paid user asks for a refund, what kind of compensation do you have, such as a delay or a refund?

Thunderbolt: We have not heard of a netizen request to apply for a refund. At such times, these questions are impossible to answer and no one can answer.

According to the reporter understand, thunderbolt is planning to restart the IPO, its internal also issued instructions, into the April after three months of the company into a quiet period. "Recently we have a relatively large pressure," the Thunder company related to the reporter said: "Mainly this time period is very special, we are very anxious sometimes, many things want to explain but can not explain." ”

"Net net 2014" terrified Thunder

Why is thunder speed affected?

All must first from April "net Net 2014" The Internet Special rectification action to talk about.

April 22, fast-seeding technology for the suspected spread of obscene information was investigated, the national "pornography" Working Group office and the National Internet Information Office combined with a number of law enforcement agencies nationwide pornography and other illegal information crackdown, Sina, Sohu and other sites have been affected. In this context, as the domestic largest download service provider's thunder began to tense up, internal self-examination to reduce the risk of investigation by the relevant departments.

In the thread of the Thunder Forum, reporter saw an article on the Thunderbolt actively cooperate with "dozen yellow sweep non-net net 2014" special Action announcement: "Thunderbolt actively cooperate with the country dozen yellow sweep net net 2014 special action, resolutely resist any obscenity and may involve the content of copyright issues, hope that the broad masses of users understand." ”

The Thunderbolt is not without reason. Although by the end of 2013, the national Thunder paid membership has been as high as 4 million, the use of Thunder netizens is a breakthrough 200 million. But a large number of netizens use Thunderbolt to download all kinds of adult videos, especially AV videos from Japan.

Theoretically, the Thunderbolt as a simple download software, netizens use this software to do what use, that is the Netizen's own things, the Thunderbolt does not assume any legal responsibility. It's like a knife, someone takes a knife to cut vegetables, someone takes a knife to chop people, but sellers of knives do not assume responsibility.

But then the Thunderbolt's move is to put their own really hold, that is, the introduction of paid membership services for members to provide offline space and cloud broadcasting functions. In short, that is, members can download their own files to the thunder of the server, you can directly through the cloud to download the edge to watch, but also at any time from the Thunderbolt server to download, greatly saving download time, but also improve the download speed.

According to a person who declined to be named, the Thunderbolt is also inevitable. Because as a commercial company, after the free means to attract a large number of users, it is necessary to choose the means of payment to survive. And for a long time as a download service provider, the Thunderbolt can not like Tencent or Baidu to provide more paid services, only may be in the download itself, with the download service to attract paid members to join.

2011, the Thunderbolt attempt in the Nasdaq listing but encountered setbacks, because the Thunderbolt lacked a clear and clear business model, the positioning of their very vague, when the Thunder declared itself to be a "consumer digital media content Internet Platform", such a title but let a lot of people feel puzzled, What kind of business positioning is this?

Until 2012, the Thunderbolt established a membership service project-led business model, around the download service for a variety of paid projects to build, so as to obtain a stable operating income.

In the Thunder Member center, the reporter sees thunderbolt to provide three kinds of membership: ordinary member, Platinum Member and Diamond member. To fully enjoy the Thunderbolt high-speed download service and cloud Broadcasting Service, you must purchase the latter two membership.

Thunder official page says, Platinum Member "Enjoy Thunder Cloud broadcast, BT Seed online look, high speed channel flow to upgrade, increase to 1000gb/month, VIP privilege version client, more refreshing more quick". Diamond Members "Enjoy sub-account privileges, can give away friends, enjoy the" mobile thunder "high-speed channel download speed, their own account number and the child account have all the privileges of platinum."

The price, the Thunder ordinary member monthly fee is 10 yuan, the annual fee is 99 yuan. Platinum Member's monthly fee is 15 yuan, one year cost is 149 yuan. Diamond members of the monthly fee of 30 yuan, an annual fee of 250 yuan. At the same time in the Thunderbolt Mall, the reporter also saw the official offers a variety of membership cards and advanced online games to speed up membership card services.

Some media reported that the Thunderbolt now has more than 400 million users, active monthly users 300 million, of which more than 4 million of the paid users, each member for the Thunderbolt to contribute about 20 yuan of income. Thunderbolt last year member value-added services revenue accounted for more than 70% of the Thunder revenue.

An industry meeting in 2013, Thunder CEO Shenglong personally confirmed that cloud acceleration has become the new core of Thunderbolt business. After three years of operation, paying users more than 4 million, become the company's largest revenue source, and maintain a 100% annual speed growth. Shenglong also said that the Thunderbolt has done a lot of server deployment, through data mining will be hot data distribution to each node to ensure that the Thunder cloud accelerated service to a relatively low cost to get a good experience.

Reporter learned that the thunderbolt this mode of cooperation inspired by Dropbox. Dropbox is a well-known U.S. cloud storage service provider, often using the "Free + value-added charging" way to promote their products. Working with Facebook, for example, provides document storage for Facebook users and is free in some space, but users need to pay if they need to store more.

But the thunder of this kind of downloading service mode obtains the huge profit at the same time, also brings the huge risk to oneself.

Download the double-edged sword on the service provider's head

Since the current Internet regulatory system is not mature enough, many netizens are through the Thunder for adult video download, and the Thunder launched the cloud Broadcast function and offline download function, just as providing an intermediary warehouse, so that netizens will download adult video stored in the Thunder offline space inside, that is, the thunder of the server above.

Before that, for a variety of reasons, the Thunderbolt has not been offline space for users to store video and Internet users download video through the high-speed channel audit, and when the "net 2014" action began, such a large number of violations of the content of the massive video stored in their own corporate server practices, It obviously brings great risks and pressure to the Thunderbolt. It is precisely because of this, the Thunderbolt to take urgent measures to offline download and cloud broadcasting services to adjust.

There is a Thunderbolt member blamed Thunder deliberately limit speed, to this one once in the video site as a technical maintenance engineer told reporters that speed limit is unlikely, because the speed is the thunderbolt to attract users of the most critical means. But why the recent Thunder download speed drop greatly, the most likely reason is the Thunder aspect in order to evade the risk, starts to take the keyword filtering and the manual audit will dispute the video to block outside the off-line space, simultaneously limits these disputed video the cloud broadcasting function. As a result, natural downloads slowed down.

Just like a highway, there were no restrictions before, the formal car can be in the informal car on this road, very smooth. But now to start on the highway to regulate the traffic, excluding those sets of car smuggling vehicles, such as irregular vehicles, began to set up checkpoints on the expressway, and each of the investigation, so that the natural speed down.

In fact this is a double-edged sword.

For a long time, in order to attract more users to join, download service providers tend to download adult video such sensitive video to open one eye, because this kind of download groups occupy a large proportion, if the hard shielding of such users to download, any download service providers can not afford such a huge loss. Because of this, many download service providers even default users to the adult video on their own server to speed up the download, providing faster download speed.

Now the state has increased its efforts to combat such video downloads, thunder, such as download service providers in order to avoid responsibility, began to delete members download to their own server sensitive video, and increase the audit strength refused to provide accelerated services for sensitive video, users only through the original download source to download this kind of video, download the speed of nature a drop thousand feet.

In the interview, a number of download service provider's attitude is very determined, in violation of national policies and industry rules of the download content, resolutely shielded and deleted.

But if these users are completely shielded, refusing to provide them with accelerated services will inevitably lead to a large loss of paid membership, knowing that such users account for at least half of the paid membership.

Extended Reading

The embarrassment of the Thunderbolt and the perplexity of the member's refund

The Thunder official Forum full screen All is requests the refund the post

In addition to the technical controversy, the Thunderbolt such as the download service providers also face a series of legal issues:

If the Internet users download a violation of the video, then stored in the Thunder of the server, Thunderbolt is responsible for joint and several violations?

How to download the video is controversial, then the Thunderbolt has the power to directly to the Internet users in the offline space to delete?

If in order to audit whether the video violation, Thunderbolt greatly reduce Internet users download speed infringement of the legitimate rights and interests of netizens?

And the most important point is that if the paid members feel that the Thunderbolt provided by the download service does not meet the extent of the previous commitment, then whether the right to request refunds or even compensation?

In the refund of this, the Thunderbolt has not given a clear answer, but the user agreement on the attitude is very clear.

In the Thunder official website, the reporter saw "the Thunderbolt member service clause". In article 3.3 Here, the Thunderbolt said "become a member, members have the right not to accept Thunderbolt Company's services, can apply for cancellation of membership services, but do not receive a refund of membership fees." ”

Article 4.2 also clearly stated: "Members of the cancellation of membership services or termination of membership, will not receive the refund of membership fees." ”

Article 5.6 from the company's rules to circumvent the thunderbolt in the download of the offending video may assume the responsibility: "Users in the Thunderbolt company products on the release of information or the use of Thunder Company's services must comply with China's relevant laws and regulations, not in the Thunderbolt company products or the use of Thunderbolt Company's services to produce, copy, publish, download, disseminate, Store the following information, so the responsibility and risk arising from the user to bear the risk, the Thunderbolt does not assume any responsibility.

Following the terms of this agreement, Thunderbolt lists 12 violations from the state constitution to the dissemination of pornographic content, emphasizing that users should be held responsible if they violate the rules.

From here, we can see that the responsibility for violating Internet content is defined very clearly, the user must bear their own responsibility, and do not have the right to request a refund.

However, as the most controversial download speed service, in the "Thunderbolt member service clause" There is no specific provisions, this is the Thunder members reflect the most intense problem.

Not only the Thunderbolt, in fact, including the QQ Cyclone and Baidu cloud download such a download service providers are faced with the problem: How to download services, especially the download speed does not match the situation, members have the right to refund? Who will define the refund criteria?

May 7, the reporter with these several questions to try to contact Baidu Cloud download and Tencent QQ Whirlwind download, the other side did not give a reply.

The question of whether a refund is required for a download service provider is really complicated.

On the one hand because the download speed itself is difficult to determine, due to the wide variety of user network bandwidth, it is impossible to have a clear commitment to service standards, certainly 20M broadband users with 2M bandwidth users to use the Thunder member service download speed is not the same.

On the other hand, download speed of the reasons involved are more complex, the operator's network stability, download the source itself is likely to download the speed of the different reasons, it is possible today is 1000kb/s download speed, tomorrow may be the speed of 500kb/s.

Of course, from the National Thunder members generally reflected in the speed of the reduction of the situation, the Thunder download service seriously slow down the spread of the wide, the impact of the deep, it is impossible to be a simple case, to a large extent with the Thunderbolt recently in the internal technical adjustment and upgrade has a great relationship.

So, because the download service providers themselves to avoid policy risk adjustment caused membership service problems, this situation as a member is entitled to refund?

Unfortunately, there is no clear provision for virtual goods services such as downloading services, whether in terms of national policy or industry regulations.

Dialog

In the face of controversy, the Thunderbolt should be more proactive

--famous it and intellectual property lawyer Zhao Occupation interpretation Thunder refund storm:

Computer: How do paid users defend themselves when they encounter an Internet service provider that does not deliver?

Zhao Occupation: Perhaps the Thunderbolt will argue that the reason is to cooperate with net net action or product technology upgrade, but these are not force majeure, force majeure generally refers to unforeseen and unavoidable events, such as natural disasters.

Paid users and Thunder is a civil dispute, but also a contract dispute. As a user, the right way can be negotiated with the Thunderbolt, but also to the local consumer associations and other institutions to make complaints, there is a way to court proceedings. But this will also involve a problem, that is, the amount of money involved is small, for users, cost, time is very high, and finally another way is the copyright department complaints.

Computer: Thunderbolt as a service provider if there is a conflict between national policy and previous services, what should be done?

Zhao Occupation: With the adjustment of national policy is the obligation of Thunderbolt, but it also involves the civil contract between it and the user must also abide by, when the two conflict, the Thunderbolt to actively resolve. On the one hand to actively clean up the content, let content compliance, so that users can continue to download and use legitimate content; the second if the Thunder in the process of cleaning up the content, for some users should have reasonable compensation measures and programs, such as a part of the cost of a refund or some additional compensation, or transfer to other value-added services.

Computer: Users in the Thunderbolt offline space content was deleted, Thunderbolt is illegal?

Zhao Occupation: Thunder offline space is not like micro-blog is completely open, a bit similar to the mailbox, only users can see the contents of the user account, the content of users are entirely within the user's own, which is similar to the traditional areas of civil tort. But because the user downloads the content does not belong to the privacy scope, from this angle, the thunderbolt has violated the user's life tranquility right, is also one kind of default behavior.

Whether it is a paid user or a free user, and the Thunderbolt is a service contract relationship, users through your software can download and watch certain services, if the Thunderbolt did not allow users to delete the content of the user space, is a breach of the act.

Computer: Thunder, QQ Cyclone and Baidu Cloud, Jin Shanyun and other downloads or network service providers, whether to download content and network disk storage content has to review the obligation?

Zhao Occupation: There is no direct provision for the content of the obligation to review. However, if the network infringement, such as copyright infringement, storage space and download service providers have joint and several liability. For infringement of intellectual property rights, infringement of privacy, portrait, etc., comply with the notification deletion rule.