P2P distribution for new media seemed like a good idea to a lot of people a few years ago. The idea was that you’d be able to distribute your content over P2P networks and avoid paying a lot of money for bandwidth. 

Unfortunately for content producers, P2P distribution for new media doesn’t offer any benefits to end users. It’s an extra hoop for people to jump through, because users have to download special software. Even more damning, though, P2P is just another thing that people have to think about before they can get your content. 

Joost announced today that they are killing off their dedicated P2P video client – because it was a barrier for users. Sites like YouTube demonstrated that you could distributed video over the Internet without asking people to install any special software, and anything less than that was a kludge.

Investors will think twice before they fund startups based on P2P distribution. 

P2P distribution poses the same challenges to podcasters – it would be nice if everybody wanted to download your content via P2P, but they don’t.