Back to the original question, downloading from a torrent is better because it doesn't swamp the "source" server.  If you have a feeble server, but a high-demand and large file to serve, providing a torrent download shifts the server load from yourself to your users, where they nearly all download from each other, and all you do is tell them where to find each other.

 

As a user, downloading a torrent can be better because that feeble server in the example above may be crawling along at a snail's pace, while the peer-to-peer download torrent is crusing at mach speed.

 

With a torrent, the more popular a file, the better the results.

 

Tom