When bittorrent was released, I saw the technological aspects as groundbreaking, thinking it would be repurposed for much more than ISO downloads and mass media distribution. How did the technology not become a more popular way of distributing via crowdsourcing large community datasets, such as openstreetmaps, or something like distribution of Android rom updates, when the costs of distribution are so expensive?
However the reason why those non-tech savvy have access to pirated content for free, with fast download speeds and with unlimited downloading is because of torrents. Bittorrent is what makes that possible.