Also not sure if you’ve ever been part of a private tracker but there a much higher percentage of users have additional motivation to contribute. Some of that is because contributing provides additional benefits to consumption. But also it’s for the love of the game. The losses of oink and what.cd were a bit like the burning of the library of Alexandria. Those libraries were the cumulative effort of tens of thousands of people sharing and meticulously cataloging. Much closer to maintaining a library or an archive than something like TPB. There is no doubt there is music that is now lost to time which was once dutifully uploaded and then preserved by a seeder on those sites. I personally have uploaded content that is not available to purchase anywhere to their successor.

I was (mistakenly) talking about what motivates people, not the benefits of piracy. The vast majority of people engaging in the practice are doing it to get free media. If someone isn’t even practicing basic 321 I don’t want to hear the word “preservation” or “archive” lol

In case it wasn’t clear before I very much support piracy. What I don’t like is people making up high-minded reasons as window dressing. The percentage of people doing it for “legitimate” or otherwise “good” reasons is very, very small. On the other hand, I also don’t think online piracy inflicts enough harm for it to be necessary to make an excuse.

As for people who make it possible, that’s another thing entirely and I agree!

Agreed! Although i will say i believe you are meaningfully contributing to preservation when you permaseed torrents, especially in private trackers. These are geographically distributed copies available for others to grab and contribute to keeping safe.

Obviously not to the degree of long term professional archiving but I do think it is a form of preservation to a greater degree than an average home user doing 3-2-1. The greatest risk of loss comes from people not resharing all their content when the private trackers disappear.

“Two is one and one is none” as the saying goes.

Could maybe use the browser client as a workaround.

I understand the sun enveloping the earth is inevitable and the fate of our species depends on shedding our earthly bonds but, I think we can conform our daily habits to our present reality without sacrificing a distant future spacefaring civilization.

Rigid timekeeping does not preclude compensation for the sun.

RE?

Reverse Engineering

Consider paying for usenet or investing some effort over a month to get into some private trackers.

But won't you still need a decent private indexer with usenet or are paid indexers with open registration good enough these days? I've been using an invite-only indexer and haven't tried any other indexers in a while.

Not sure, I haven’t used Usenet myself but some friends do. From how quickly they were up and running it seemed to be less effort than getting into good private trackers.

Sure but you wouldn’t expect your filling cabinet to call the cops on you. Because your filling cabinet doesn’t read your papers. The problem is the spying not the acting on credible threats of violence.

I’m sure I’m an outlier out here in the boonies but they are consistently slower than the other 3 carriers out here.

They have something I want. Usually that’s to check an account for a status update on a service or organization, or view a link that’s been sent to me.

I was fine with occasionally wading into the shit pile for something I want. It’s fine, the door is open and I don’t live there. Get in get out.

But now they want me have a shit address and shit suit and a shitmail. They want me to say hey its me mr shit can you let me in so can I have some of that delicious shit?

Instead I think I’ll just put on a hazmat suit and steal the few pieces I want from their shit pile and get out.

Boycotting them is pointless. Holding to your principals does nothing but hinder your own usage of the internet and does not help bring about the end of X or whoever else. The 0.5% of X users using xcancel disappearing overnight would have no impact.

These monoliths of Internet consolidation are not worth our consideration. Steal their content, block their ads, get on with your life.

You have to actually look not just get spoon fed by the algorithm. Community is how you find music. Subreddits, forums, record stores. You find reviewers with similar tastes and see what they like. You search “bands like X” on the Internet. You keep up with artists you like and watch for new albums. It’s more active than just letting the algorithm feed you stuff but it works. Also radio still exists and public radio especially is still great for discovery.

Or if you’re ripping your CDs and listening via apps you can just scrobble and get algo recommendations still while owning your music and without a monthly fee.