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Can someone explain the benefits of Usenet to a long-time torrent-er? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by nopersonalspace@lemmy.world to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6240929

I'm a pretty heavy torrent user, running a media server complete with sonarr/radarr for automatic downloads. I download a lot, and have multiple TBs of upload on various private trackers. I've been torrenting forever, but I've always wondered about usenet. Over and over on this, and other, forums I see people saying that usenet is way better - but why?

I understand what it is overall, but what makes it better than traditional torrenting? In my mind, it's always just seemed like a different means to the same end. I pay for a VPN and torrent for "free", or I pay for usenet access and download directly from there. As someone who's "snobby" around the quality of the stuff I torrent, does usenet provide an advantage there?

Usenet fans, I'd love to hear what makes you love it! I'm always open to trying new things, and if It really is better I'd love to know why! (Plus, maybe what providers/tools etc you recommend).

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[-] Zavasay@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 year ago

$100/year is less than $9/month. You’re not going to get very many rentals with that. Whereas Usenet, you can get as much as you want. $9 a month is also less or the same as a single subscription to a streaming service. I’d gladly pay $9 for one place to have everything I want. I’ve never used usenet, just pointing out why it would be worth to some people to pay for it.

[-] stown@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Do you know how much a library membership costs where you are? Are you unable to rent movies at your public library? BitTorrent covers the majority of my needs but when I can't find that older movie online I can usually find it at my public library.

[-] Zavasay@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 year ago

Okay you got me. I definitely was not remembering you can rent for free from public libraries. That is highly under utilized feature in my life (and many people’s) but I have, in the last five years, been using it a lot more for audio books.