I feel this way too, and the only people I've ever seen talk about private trackers have always had a weird chip on their shoulder. It has very "secret club" vibes. I know the stuff on public trackers only comes out because of scene leaks, but the scene wouldn't vanish if there weren't any more private trackers. Bittorrent was made for widespread public sharing without risk of censorship or takedowns, you don't need to keep it hushed, it's already protected against that. So private trackers have always just seemed like social clubs to me (I mean that in a bad way)

I would and for the most part have used private trackers for either a specific type of thing or a specific kinda obscure or not very popular title. I find that the more not well known a thing is, the more likely it's going to be found and (re)seeded on a private tracker.