No, it's private libraries closed to the broader community. The millions of Indians in the aforementioned comment are precisely the people who'd benefit most from free flow of information, but they're excluded. This is like setting up a premium subscription library to keep poor people out - the "slums" are precisely the people who benefit from a public library the most. Tagging and removal of duplicates can be done without making a tracker private.
Public torrents have been plenty fast enough for me, I'm not sure why people are complaining. Maybe they're not sophisticated enough to up the connection limits on their torrent software, which is why slow peers are hampering their speeds.
With those people come automated abuse reports and law firms trying to collect money from downloaders.
> Public torrents have been plenty fast enough for me, I'm not sure why people are complaining. Maybe they're not sophisticated enough to up the connection limits on their torrent software, which is why slow peers are hampering their speeds.
Are you using a gigabit connection? If not, it’s not too surprising that you would not notice this.
Even the big private trackers have less users in total than you can find in individual public swarms.
> This is like setting up a premium subscription library to keep poor people out
No, it's not. The content is still redistributed to the public trackers. It just avoids the American idea that public libraries should also be homeless shelters.
> Tagging and removal of duplicates can be done without making a tracker private.
You'd have to massively increase moderation, and you'd constantly remove and change torrents which would disrupt the swarm. It's not useful.
> Public torrents have been plenty fast enough for me
I don't care about the speed. I care about the quality.
Private trackers are the communal libraries where enthusiasts work hard to improve the collective archives. They sort out the people who cannot behave and the whole experience is a lot better: rules regarding organization and filenames etc are being followed, tags are added so that you can search efficiently, requests are filled, quality is ensured, holes are plugged, people don't upload duplicates, you'll find help and exchange in forums about the tracker's topic etc etc, all because it's a private club which includes the possibility that your membership ends if you pee into the kitchen.