Private trackers - Yay or Nay

While I do get the incentive to participate in a private tracker, is it really worth it?

Private trackers are known to have strict rules about seeding and contributing back to the tracker if you are a member.

Those rules leave a sour taste with many torrenting users, since they feel forced to give back to the community.

A user is required to maintain a certain upload/download ratio, else the ability to download torrents is disabled.

Such ratio requirements push people to create and use software like autodl-irssi or autobrr.

Those auto-downloaders give you an edge to be amongst the first seeders after a torrent is uploaded, guaranteeing you a larger portion of the uploaded data.

Another thing that drives people away from private trackers is invites.

Having to beg someone, or prove your worthiness to get invited to a private tracker feels a bit too much, just so I can download Deadpool in 4K.

While everyone agrees that seeding is good, it should be done on the terms of the end-user and not dictated by the tracker owners.

There are many instances where one won’t be able to seed a torrent:

• bad upload speed
• unable to run the torrent client 24/7
• the contents get deleted too quickly after download (due to reasons)

The list can go on, and any of those reasons make it impossible for the user to be part of a private tracker.

One of the upsides of private trackers is that torrents are alive for a longer period of time, again due to the imposed seeding rules.

Being able to download a non-mainstream movie uploaded years ago is not that common with public trackers, I have to admit.

Overall, private trackers give a gatekeeping, elitist notion that doesn’t sit well with many.

If you have the free time and resources to contribute to one, go for it. That is, if you get an invite :^)