I would go farther and say that the problems in the essay are understated.

I consider myself a conscientious user who is very impressed by the IDEA of GnutellaNet. I investigated different clients (and found that Newtella and ToadNode are much faster and more responsive than the "official" 0.56 or Gnotella).

However, the GnutellaNet-at-large, which is what is studied in the report, is nearly useless as it exists now.

I have a DSL connection, and share about 1 GB of complete, quality songs and video. After trying for days, the success rate on my searches (that is, searches that return ANY hits) is only about 2 in 3. My success rate for downloads is atrocious. Less than 20% of attempted D/L's eventually complete. The great majority hang forever.

If anyone can point me to any usable GnutellaSubnets that recruit on the usenet groups for music and porn, I would be happy to trade quality files for membership.