this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2024
91 points (96.0% liked)

Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

55064 readers
128 users here now

⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.

Rules • Full Version

1. Posts must be related to the discussion of digital piracy

2. Don't request invites, trade, sell, or self-promote

3. Don't request or link to specific pirated titles, including DMs

4. Don't submit low-quality posts, be entitled, or harass others



Loot, Pillage, & Plunder

📜 c/Piracy Wiki (Community Edition):


💰 Please help cover server costs.

Ko-Fi Liberapay
Ko-fi Liberapay

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Just wondering what a rough split is of people using either Usenet, torrents, or both?

I've only just discovered Usenet and while it is paid, it is very cheap and much more convenient than torrents.

Using torrents as well with the *arr suite set up for my various Linux ISOs.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Wait, you have to pay for using Usenet?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Well since someone has to host the data, someone needs to pay for it :P

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

It's funny you put it that way, because torrents are based fundamentally on the idea of freely hosting the data so nobody has to pay to access it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Torrents are based on the idea that everyone using them pays for it with their bandwidth and hardware cost. Except for those leechers who don't share.

I'm paying more for my seedbox than for my usenet subscription. If I used my own hardware I'd pay with stress on my hardware, e.g. the disks aging and failing earlier because of seeding. The power consumption is also not negligeble, altough the server is also used for other purposes.

With private trackers this idea of an equal exchange is more obvious because of ratio requirements.

Edit: I'd say it's similar to open source in that no single individual has to pay for it, but someone does have to, for it to exist. Most often with their (valuable) time and knowledge. If no one helps out and does their part (through money or time+knowledge), a project won't survive for long. Same is true for torrents.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

You pay for traffic. There are some free versions out there, but they limit you to 10-25 GB or something. Might be an option for the 1% you can't find on public trackers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

You can get free accounts from sites like Eternal September, but you only get access to text groups, which are mostly full of spam anymore. If you don't download much, it's best to just get a block account.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Yes just like paying for vpn and/or seedbox to safely torrent.