The downtime for ZeroPaid extends into a second week. With no official word available, the chances continue to dwindle.
We first reported on the downtime of the big filesharing news website nearly two weeks ago. At the time, we contacted administration as well as the official website over Twitter. We didn’t get a response, so the downtime was shrouded in mystery.
We continued to monitor the situation since. Last week, we noted the continued database errors whenever you access a page. Those error messages persist when viewing any other page to our knowledge. As the downtime continued for one week, we naturally wondered noted the remote possibility that the site isn’t coming back.
We are now in week two and the database errors continue to persist. To say a large website going down for two weeks with no official communication is unusual would be an understatement at this stage. While we said last week that there is a remote possibility that the site isn’t coming back, now, there is definitely a real possibility that this really is the end of the website.
The gravity of the loss of ZeroPaid is easy to understate. The website has been around since 2000. As such, it’s been around for about 17 years now. So, this is a long running website we are talking about. From the filesharing news writing perspective, ZeroPaid is certainly one of the possible choices young budding filesharing reporters could turn to as a platform for their news coverage. Indeed, many people took that opportunity to write for the website. As a result, ZeroPaid was a major staple in the world of filesharing news.
Even as the activity waned in the last year or so, the significant presence of the site was still being felt. This is because of the significant history the site had built up. The number of articles the site had racked up over the years was quite substantial. With news, guides, interviews, and so much more, there really was something for just about everyone. Even with the forums, many users called that place home as well. There were a number of regulars who would banter about almost daily.
It’s not unreasonable to say that, even just 5 years ago, it’s hard to picture the Internet without ZeroPaid if you were into filesharing news. So, the idea of the site just disappearing one day is pretty sad. If this is the end of the site, it’s a pretty safe thing to say that it will leave a pretty substantial hole.
Whether or not this is the end, it’s still difficult to say. Still, if we don’t see the site come back, at this point, it wouldn’t be an overwhelming surprise anymore.
We’ll continue to monitor the situation and see if anything changes.
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Google+.
