When you run a website that is a out file sharing, you come to learn a lot about culture. Often times it’s not even your intention, but it happens due to the nature of the job. For example, a user from Saudi Arabia may upload a movie once a week, and you learn that he or she is a film producer that is using your online file sharing service to broadcast his films to his teacher and share with his family and friends.
As the owner of a file sharing site, I have had encounters with users. One user had an interesting story, and I thought I would share it on the company blog. This user’s name is Kevin and he owns a company that sells traveling gear, hiking gear, and the like. His biggest seller is trekking poles, which are sturdy poles that are used by hikers to conquer mountains and large hills. When asking him why he came to use FileDen, and eventually love it enough to become a premium user, he told me his use of FileDen dated back to when he was a child and his cousins would play games with him. They would often play games like Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Grant Theft Auto: San Andreas, and to progress in these games, they would send each other “save files”, which were files that contained encoded game information that told the game how far you were in the game and what inventory you held. Using these save files, Kevin and his cousins were able to progress in the game, and to share the save files, they used none other than FileDen.com. (Though, if they were in the same household, a solution like LAN file sharing or a USB flash drive may have been a better option!)
Another user recently reached out, his name is Sven and he runs an online casino site that helps people find information about Swedish casinos that operate without a license, or as the locals call it casino utan Svensk license. Because Sweden bans these casino operators who often circumvent the bans set in place by the lawmakers of Sweden by operating online casinos in countries like Malta with lenient gambling laws.
These are the little things that make running FileDen an enjoyable task. Dealing with file takedown requests, DMCA complaints, user complaints, user error, ad problems, and server issues is often a headache, and the amount I make from ad network revenues and premium user subscriptions honestly does not make it worth it. What does make it worth all of the effort (and more!) is the user interaction on the forums and with the premium users when I learn how my services help them facilitate their job better. Whether it’s a teacher sharing his lecture notes with his students or a man sharing his assignment with his French tutor, FileDen is a learning experience for me. I am so glad to call FileDen mine.