Is tit-for-tat seeding important?

[bedeho]

I notice that when I download some mainstream popular torrent file, the majority of my download speed
is due to a few nodes that I am myself uploading very little to.

I thought the reason BitTorrent worked so well was that people could not leech due to the tit-for-tat downloading policy,
where peers will prefer to seed only to peers which have pieces they want?

This seems to not be the case in many situations, so why are these peers seeding so much?

[justlooking]

People with faster home connections and seedboxes.

[anon]

people could not leech due to the tit-for-tat downloading policy

That only applies on peer-to-peer connections. The overseeding usually present on private trackers gives a middle finger to it.

[bedeho]

Im really referring to content which is available through trackers listed on pirate bay and such, and to my knowledge they are all public?

So why would anyone overseed on a public tracker, this is what Im not understanding? Be it someone with a seedbox or a fast home connection, why?

Its costly, and its risky if its copyrighted stuff?

[anon]

Im really referring to content which is available through trackers listed on pirate bay and such, and to my knowledge they are all public?

Sorry - considering the usual focus of this subforum, I assumed you were talking about private sites, even though looking at the first post again there's nothing suggesting that.

So why would anyone overseed on a public tracker, this is what Im not understanding? Be it someone with a seedbox or a fast home connection, why?

Its costly, and its risky if its copyrighted stuff?

It's easy (just leave your client open), it's the right thing to do, and no one gets hurt by it because public sites do not enforce ratios. "Costly" and "risky" both depend on your location. If you live on a country where copyright infringement laws are relaxed and have a fast, unmetered connection, then why not?