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Comment by ascagnel_ | Hacker News Reader

This is definitely not true. If you're looking for stuff that's popular here and now, you'll do fine (especially if you're a fan of Hollywood blockbusters). But as soon as you start looking for back catalogue stuff, you're in a mess of dead torrents and broken links.

Want to find a mostly-forgotten science fiction movie from the mid-90s (in my case, Strange Days)? Two hours of hunting for a way of downloading it led me to buying it through a VoD service instead.

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Come on... I found your movie streaming in one super easy google search..it was the second link. Not to mention a 26 seed torrent in another simple google search. Just last night I watched a Polanski film streaming with basically no effort. Finding old movies streaming online is incredibly easy. I bet 100% of the IMDB top 250 can be easily found by searching "X streaming free" and having a good ad blocker.

I literally just opened The Pirate Bay, typed "Strange Days", and clicked the top result which has 20 seeds. Couldn't be easier... although maybe it is more difficult in your country, or with your ISP.

https://pirateproxy.vip/search/Strange%20Days/0/99/0

This is actually a great example. There is only one torrent with more than one seeder referring to the movie (it has 17 seeders). So I am forced to use a single format to view the movie in, can't easily use an app to show it on my TV (key word being "easily"), can't choose subtitles for my language of choice, etc, etc. By accident you are making other people's point.

Were a more distributed, anonymous storage system to exist instead of on prioritizing seeding and recently used, larger catalogs and quality options might exist.

Well p2p such as torrent is for the bottom feeders. There are better methods available.

If you're referring to topsites, they are archaic, their rules are outdated, and they optimize for speed over quality of releases.

In terms of breadth and quality of content, private torrent trackers are far and away the best download method.

Usenet

Unless you're using private NZB sites with encrypted/obfuscated files, usenet is nowhere near as good as it used to be.

Even then, private torrent trackers are better for choice.

I'm still amazed at the number of "mock busters" that are on torrent sites. The awful, low budget, garbage take offs...Like one called "Atlantic Rim." I think you can guess what it was a take off of. Fired up Popcorn Time recently and the list was packed full of those types of movies.

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