I feel like lately I’ve been doing more piracy than actually using the content I’ve been pirating. Curating a library has been so enjoyable lately, I’m not the only one right?
I started as a hobby but slowly weened my immediate friends family off of subscriptions because I like seeing the media actually be consumed and now I can’t ever do maintenance on my server because someone is always using something
I had so much time yet so few things to watch and play growing up, I think I’ve become a data hoarder as a “response” to this. Now I love being able to provide friends & family all the content they could ever want.
I don’t just pirate for the sake of piracy. If I download something, it’s because I either intend to use it or watch it or because a family member asked me to get it for them.
That said, even though I do it for the destination, I love the journey as well. I’ve been torrenting for a little over 10 years now, and for most of that time, I was just a hit-and-run user because I didn’t have dedicated resources for doing it. I ran qBittorrent in a virtual machine, grabbed my stuff, and then wiped it out. Last year though, after years of torrenting without consequences, I got two love letters from my ISP within a very short period of time, and because of that, I decided to redo my setup. I now use a dedicated computer as a seedbox over a VPN and try to seed as much as I can. It’s sort of funny. My seedbox sits on a shelf in my bedroom and I always have a strange sense of satisfaction when I walk by or lay awake in bed and see the little hard drive LED flashing away because somewhere in the world, someone’s connected to my little computer to grab a copy of something that I also wanted.
I think subconsciously we are all prepping for the end of the world as we know it lol
I do always think about a scenario where the internet goes down for one reason or another. I’ve got houuuuuurs of content to keep me busy.
I can only think of one scenario where the internet would be shut down and that would be during a blackout sadly.
Bet it happens for political reasons. First rule of suppressing revolutions is to cut communications.
Ham radio enthusiasts will start feeling very pleased with themselves then. Until jammers are brought in anyway.
It’s going to be difficult to jam outside of the cities. I imagine people are going to set up private wired networks in their neighborhoods, or use Wi-Fi mesh. The good news is that at that point, laws against piracy will be totally moot.
Right there with ya. I’m a data hoarder first and foremost. I have two goals when it comes to piracy:
A) If I have ever watched, read, listened, played, or otherwise enjoyed a piece of media, I will have it available at all times.
B) Do what I can to preserve said data so 40 years from now when I’m telling kids about some generic super hero comic, or SNES game, or obscure TV miniseries, I can pull that shit up in seconds instead of being the old senile man telling stories.
I got 30TB of space, I got almost every movie, TV show, stand up special, album, video game, comic book, novel, and essential software that I want (and adding more daily), and it’s all served up to whatever friend wants it via Plex or whatever-other-means-I-need-depending-on-the-media.
Meanwhile I’m on my 35th watch through of Archer lol
Lurking through communities related to my favorite literary genres while having Z-Lib is like walking into a candy store as a 10-year-old and being told that you can get all that you want free of charge. Of course curating a library is enjoyable lmao
I actually like the download limit that Z-Lib has for regular users. If you use it up, it moght be a good time for you to go actually read what you have downloaded.
Honestly I’m kinda a datahoarder lol so I basically archive things for the sake of preservation. In this aspect I guess this coincides with your point, since many things I pirate I don’t really consume, I just might potentially consume, or find it valuable, so I pirate it and keep it lol
It’s not piracy, it’s arrrchiving!