If you could turn back the clock....

[1000possibleclaws]

... to before you discovered private trackers. Would you still have proceeded the same way? Why?

(or, what would you have done differently?)



A very curious question for the regulars/ the familiar faces. No offense to any of you, but if I coulda prevented myself from discovering private torrenting, I would definitely have stuck to Isohunt, ThePirateBay, and Slsk. The opportunity cost of the time I've sunk over the past few years absorbed in p2p was not worth the warez nor the special sites I acquired during that time. This is also pretty much the reason I stopped staffing here.

Still use torrents though, because what the hell. Spent so much time already, might as well use the sites I got from it to their full advantage. I think I still spend an unhealthy amount of time on p2p...

[ca_aok]

I think this is a great thread topic

I'm pretty conflicted on the matter myself. I got into private torrenting for a specific reason, because public trackers had music that was poorly tagged, transcoded, at inconsistent bitrates, missing album tracks, etc. I wanted a quality controlled source for full music albums, which I found in What.CD and later on many other music trackers. Music is still my most commonly downloaded content, and my community participation centers around my music trackers.

Through private torrenting, I've learned a ton of stuff both about computers and life in general from the people I've met. Whether it's encoding music/movies, analyzing files, learning how to use linux, learning more about encryption, learning more about coding, etc. Some people I've talked to have also had some profound views on music, politics, or just life in general, and that's also been quite good.

However, I feel like in general torrenting is going downhill. More sites are created every single day, and politics and drama are constantly in the limelight. The emphasis these days is on hoarding buffer with seedboxes to transcend ridiculous user class requirements, and less on community participation. I used to participate in several places, but more and more often I find myself only posting on a few select sites and just using the rest to download content. I see more and more emphasis placed on secrecy and rarity where the sites I respect are the large ones where staff are open about what they do, and put their asses on the line every day to serve us content.

I've put a ton of my time and in some cases money into torrenting, and yeah in some cases I think that it's been a waste. I don't think I'd turn back the clock, but I think I'd do certain things differently. Certainly there would be sites I wouldn't have joined, people I wouldn't have interacted with, etc. There's nothing I specifically regret per se, but I think at the end of the day I've reached a stage where I'm spending less time involved in drama and more time simply grabbing content. I've already joined all the sites I wished to join and achieved any "goals" I had in the torrenting world, so I figure at this point it's a bit late and pointless to just bail out. Private sites still get you higher quality content at a faster speed than public sites, without the viruses and fakes.

[cinephilia]

i would never have access to treasures like the ones you can find on sites such as KG or cinematik if i had never cared about private torrenting so yes, i would definitely proceed the same way.

[Night0wl]

I pretty much agree with everything ca_aok said but with OiNK.

But yes, I would have never got involved with any kind of BT politics and I'm glad I let everything go a few months ago, when I had had enough.

Now I laugh at the idiots who keep making it a big deal. If a friend or someone I know gets in a jam (often for no reason) then I try to help, otherwise fuck it all and burn in hell. I'll just download and share where and when I want to.

Edit: And before someone asks. God's honest truth!!

[IdolEyes787]

Do I regret becoming involved in private trackers no .Do I regret because of my obvious lackings spending too much time and money ( ironic huh) on something that doesn't truly enrich my life yes.

But then as Shakespeare wrote "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,But in ourselves"

and as you Truesounds seem to have discovered "Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,Which we ascribe to Heaven".

sorry for the lame vid but all things considered ( and a tip of the hat to ca_aok ) it seemed appropriate.

[youtube]oRhhNPBPGyU[/youtube]

[1000possibleclaws]

Ca_aok, I'm pretty much in the same boat. I got drawn into private trackers because public trackers did not cut it for my music tastes. I could not even find any copy of half the stuff I wanted. The first private site I joined 3 years ago (Kraytracker) is the most invaluable site I've ever had. I've downloaded 1000+ underground punk releases in high quality, that I would not have been able to get ahold of anywhere else. Not only that, but the uploaders there had a huge influence on shaping my current music taste. I don't entirely regret my torrenting path, but I do look back and think what if I had tread no further than my first tracker. Maybe I'd keep Demonoid too..

But it's no use crying over spilt milk, and I do appreciate the trackers I am a part of today. A bit more convenient than any other free alternative.



btw nice scholarly quotes Idol, You're the only guy I know who can pull these intellectual phrases from your ass for any and every given situation lol

[Rart]

While I personally really like the concept of private trackers (which is why I started in the first place), if I really had a choice I probably would have just sticked with TL, the first tracker I had joined. I certainly wouldn't avoid private trackers altogether - the speeds on TL seemed like a godsend compared to the slow as a crawl speeds of public tracker.

But I would have to admit that near the beginning, fueled by the motive that I should find other niche sites "just in case" I couldn't find what I needed at TL, I probably spent far more time than I needed looking into private sites that I would almost never touch. If there was anything I ever didn't find at TL, it was most likely some obscure Wii VC game I found at BCG, and probably could have found just as easily with a bit of googling. Now that I have been around my fair share of trackers, I really feel a bit underwhelmed. Perhaps it's the fact that I'm not incredibly into obscure content, but there was never really anything I couldn't find at TL.

Another fact to consider is the fact that I'm going to college in about ~6 months, and the college I was accepted to has a 5GB monthly bandwidth cap - not nearly enough for managing torrents (However, intranet traffic doesn't count and they have a rather nice DC++ hub so I will hopefully still be able to get my filesharing fix). Inevitably in a matter of months all my tracker accounts will probably die from inactivity pruning, indicated even more time I could have saved by not even bothering in the first place. And the real icing on the cake is that I had gotten in this free VIP promotion thing that got me a year of free VIP at TL - meaning if I really wanted to, I could've completely disregarded ratio until I was off at college, becoming even less preoccupied with torrents and saving even more time.

But hey, maybe this is a little cheesy, but without having delved further into the world of private trackers I never would've found FST in the first place, so it couldn't have been a total loss could it

[KushBlow]

"Dude, I can like, stop time and stuff."

[Funkin']

I would definitely have stuck to Isohunt, ThePirateBay, and Slsk.

I think I may have stayed in this "bubble" too, if I could do it over. Back then I was unaware of all the douchebags and drama in the BT community. And that was nice...

But now, I'm spoiled by the excellent content of a few trackers(music mainly). So now, I couldn't go back to using only public trackers because of the fair share of bullshit and low quality files.

[Sanka113]

I wouldn't of done anything different. I went about BT like I went about other hobbies I got heavily involved with. I'm the type of person that gets into a hobby and gets in deep. I spend tons of time, make firends, fight the good fight, etc, untill I'm burned out. After a while, I need something new to turn my obsession toward. So, when I needed a new hobby to replace Forza and it's community,I turned to BT and it's community. My BT obsession has since passed in favor of fantasy sports. After, fantasy sports who knows?