Torrent use has been for sure slowed down by governments.
The key people behind Torrent websites are likely in jail or fighting lawsuits.
I had a friend who lives in Germany served with a fine of more than 1000 euros because he had forgotten to turn on his VPN while accessing a torrent website.
I'm not sure about Germany, but in the US there's been very little legal action taken against torrent users or websites in recent times. There are still plenty of popular torrent sites for anything you can imagine (e.g. The Pirate Bay is still online, BTN for TV, PTP for movies, Redacted for music.)
If anything has curb torrents, I think it was the advent of streaming media services (i.e. market dynamics, not policy.) However, the flood of new services on the market is causing the cost of consumption to increase again and I expect we'll see a revival of torrents...
Plus, while torrenting traffic is down, I think more people are sharing downloaded media via services like Plex, which may mask the "actual" distribution of torrents.
> Have you heard of the great firewall of China?
If this is a serious question... yes? What argument are you making exactly?
The key people behind Torrent websites are likely in jail or fighting lawsuits.
I had a friend who lives in Germany served with a fine of more than 1000 euros because he had forgotten to turn on his VPN while accessing a torrent website.
> "Information wants to be free"
Have you heard of the great firewall of China?