Wanted to play some games, didn’t have money but I did know someone that knew someone that knew someone that ran a BBS that had some pirated games.

Yes, I’m that old.

Was just trying to watch the original Star Wars from when I was young and found out that it is simply not available for sale. My money is no good! Then I found this Project 4K77.

Geographic restrictions. I live in Czechia. I can afford to pay for content and generally do if I can, but there is quite a lot of content I want that is not available via any content service whatsoever here. For that I sail the high seas.

My brothers were using limewire like 20 years ago when I was a preteen. So I started using limewire, and quickly surpassed them in skill. Jumped to TPB when they got popular. I now host the family media server, and take requests 😬

Still haven’t taken the time to set up sonarr radarr and the like. Would probably simplify my life a lot. But I’ve got a system and it works 🤷‍♂️

I went back to it recently. It’s mostly down to Amazon deciding that paying them was no longer enough, you had to watch their ads as well.

Well now I don’t. I installed Jellyfin, paid up for two years of VPN, and got another HDD. I’m set. I’m all done with asking nicely for a better service so I got my own.

I sub to Spotify because it’s easier than pirating. I’m a creature of convenience. If there was one streaming service that had all movies that have already had their cinema run, and all TV shows, and was all in one UI, and nothing ever got taken off it, and it was a reasonable price (say the price of two current streaming services), I’d probably pay up for it.

But there isn’t. They don’t want to offer it. They all want to be king of their little corner.

During my early years of life, my late father used to pirate a lot of movies. And my brother went to same path as my late father. Saved a lot of time and money.

I really wanted to give Assassin’s Creed Valhalla a try soon after it came out, as it had been a few years since I’d played any of the games. So I began looking into how I could get it for free.

I didn’t really enjoy the game but what I discovered was much greater than just one game.

Earliest example of me pirating was when my dad used Limewire. I’d like to think I used it as well, but I doubt it since I wouldn’t have known anything to look up.

Otherwise, in highschool I would go to different sites to find cartoons/anime that weren’t available on Netflix (or Hulu back when it was just about the only competitor). This was before I knew what sites were safe, so I probably ended up getting viruses without knowing.

I first wanted a copy of miitopia. But didn’t know atbrhe time. Then I just got some nodded apks and game roms

Was born into it really. Got my first PC. Knew nothing. Slowly learnt stuff off my sis who was going into engineering. Thru her I met a guy who was dating a friend of ours. He was like hey sign up for this BB and you can get tons of free shit. He pointed to D2 which I played like mad. I signed up and just got thrown into the scene. Ended up being an admin of that board for a bit. This was around the time Oink was at its peak. Like 2y later, gone.

Went to uni myself and just supplied everyone with free stuff for school. Even profs lol.

And that’s just how I stayed. Felt good buying everything I used after I got a job out of school tho. Still use some of it today! But for most media, it’s just like why NOT sail. If movies were a buck a pop like they should be, I’d probably furl up my Jolly Roger. Till that day tho 🏴‍☠️

I started because I wanted to get around censorship in my country. I also wanted to view stuff in the original language and here we dub everything.

Most of the stuff I was looking for couldn’t even be found on store shelves. Before online shopping and streaming, if it wasn’t the latest release or biggest hit, you probably wouldn’t be able to find it locally. You’d waste time browsing up and down aisles of junk only to leave disappointed, then try again at another store, hoping that by some miracle they’d have it.

Then I discovered that terabytes upon terabytes of content was available, nearly instantly and conveniently, on the internet. All you had to do was click a few buttons and you had what you wanted. That was about 25+ years ago, and the recording industry still has not adapted to offer a service that even comes close to what was available back then.

In the early 00s I pirated a lot of music, but now I buy records and pay for streaming because it’s affordable and good.

I used to pirate software but now I just use FOSS because it’s free and good.

I used to pirate games but now I just wait for steam sales, which is cheap and good.

I used to pirate lots of movies and tv shows but then got a Netflix account and it was reasonably priced and good… until it wasn’t. Then I set up a full stack of usenet/ sonarr/ radarr/ overseer/ Jellyfin and boy oh boy is that good.

But now I have a baby and don’t watch tv anymore so I pirate pretty much nothing.

Holy shit I also pirated DC talk hahaha. Wasn’t allowed to listen to it .

What would people think of they hear that I’m sailing the high seas?

I lived in china and it was the only way to access loads of media. When I got back I saw the hellscape that streaming had become. We recreated cable. That and not owning anything anymore. So I still sail the high seas. Even if I wanted to pay the high price of 30 different streaming services it’s a better more enjoyable experience sailing.