People who pirated in the late 90s and early 00s what is the most dramatic change from then till now? And if you had the power what would you bring back? - eviltoast
  • forgotmylastusername@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    People still gloat about piracy being a hydra where you cut off one head and more pop up. Except it isn’t any where close to that. Probably hasn’t been in at least 10-15 years. Piracy has been gradually chipped away at. People don’t seem to want to admit that. As if that would be siding with anti-piracy or something.

    In its heyday the catalogues of content was immense in breadth and depth. Just about any obscure thing could be found. These days even popular TV shows become more difficult to come by even a short while after the episode has been released. Unless you have access to more private parts of the web then you’re left trying to source some low quality trash tier download.

    Which brings me to the next point. Piracy used to be about providing the best possible quality. With popularity the quality got watered down. Opportunists came in trying to monetize it which drew the attention of authorities. Which drew the attention more opportunists which drew the attention of authorities. It snowballed.

    What piracy used to be was the spirit of the original internet. It was the library not just a library but the library of humanity. People catalogued and shared because that’s what librarians do.

    If I had the power I’d take away its popularity. Make it obscure again. It was better when it was ruled by snobs and autistic perfectionists.

    • riodoro1@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      This. TPB was almost a trust worthy site in 2010’s. They had ads for penis enlargement and domains changed constantly, but it was so easy to find everything there. Now it’s hard to find a mirror that will let you click a magnet link and most of the time the torrents are dead.

    • eating3645@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Sounds like you should get involved with PTs, they’d be right up your alley. The spirit is alive and well.

    • Corroded@leminal.space
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      2 months ago

      Piracy used to be about providing the best possible quality. With popularity the quality got watered down.

      Do you think that has to do with popularity though or a shifting attitude towards piracy?

      I feel like there’s a lot of people who treat it like they would with streaming. Downloading the newest episode or season of a show and deleting it almost immediately. They don’t feel the need to store it for later.

      People do keep stuff might be limited by their storage. A 1TB portable HDD can be great but if you are downloading entire shows it can devour it pretty quickly.

      Either way I feel like a lot of people aren’t concerned about quality. They care about having immediate access to it.