Oh wow! That’s awesome! I wonder if I’ll see another upgrade soon too? I have a similar setup going too. Seed box for active torrents and other recently acquired files, and then anything I want to keep long term eventually gets moved to my local server.

I had tried a VPN + kill switch before getting a seed box, but it failed on me a few times. Plus, I was in school at the time, spending very little time at home, and my ISP increased their rates AGAIN, so I just cancelled my home internet. Trying to torrent through my laptop on public WiFi was a pain, but with a seed box it was way easier, and just needed to download the files to my laptop if I wanted to watch at home, which was also never a problem on public WiFi.

Also using whatbox.ca for a long time now. I remember quite a few years ago I received an email notification about them making changes to my plan, and I panicked for a moment until I finished reading and realized they were increasing my storage by 5x and my traffic limit by 2x, but my monthly price would remain the same.

TL;DR: Great to have if you’re looking for less popular content, high quality files, and/or are concerned about copyright notices, but the rules that keep the niche content alive make them less appealing for super popular content.
I randomly made friends IRL about a year ago and got an invite to BTN & PTP. I don’t watch/download a lot of movies, so my account at PTP has lapsed, but I’ve kept my account with BTN.
From my recent searches, BTN tends to have higher quality files and more seeders than public trackers, but since a) I have a seed box, which provides a line of defense against copyright notices, and is only strengthened my my *aars (gets me in & out of the swarm before the studios find it), b) I usually can’t tell the difference in quality from the devices I’m using (and my friends/family most definitely don’t notice/care), c) seed ratio or time doesn’t impact access to public trackers, and d) I prefer to keep public torrents alive, I usually lean towards public trackers, and only use the private trackers for things that are harder to find and/or things I want in high quality.
I still try to seed to a minimum ratio of 3.0 on popular files (public or private), and ∞ for more niche files, but sometimes demand is so low, and I need to move files off of my seed box. While a ratio below 1.0 makes me feel “stuck” no matter where I got the file from, private tracker rules definitely amplify that feeling.

TIL that I’m a man.

Looks like Sonarr grabbed it for me from a private tracker about 5 hours ago. I’m sure it will hit public trackers later today, if it hasn’t already.

I think many people may view those sort of costs differently than the monthly subscription costs of Netflix, etc. Hardware is generally seen as a “one time” cost, and the added electricity costs are difficult to tease out from all the other variable electricity costs.
My personal argument is that I pay a monthly subscription ($15/mo) for a seed box, which is roughly the same cost as subscribing to a single streaming service.
Back before the password sharing crackdown, I had access to my parents’ Netflix account, and every once in a while, I’d try it out, but I’d always quickly get annoyed and would finish watching whatever I was watching via my Plex server.

I don’t have any experience with Usenet or any current DDL sources. I generally check public trackers first, then private trackers, and mostly use private trackers when I can’t find something on public trackers.
My selfish reasoning is that with public trackers, I don’t have to worry about my seed ratio, etc. I generally seed to a 3.0 ratio, and I do have some older/more niche stuff set to infinity, but when I need to clear some space in my seed box, it’s nice to be able to delete stuff without worrying I’ll be penalized.
From a less selfish perspective, if it exists in decent quality on public trackers, I’d rather contribute to keeping it alive there, where more people can access it.

I’ve never actually tested that out. If it’s content I want long term, I simply download it to my local storage before deleting from Whatbox.

What I’ve found works best for me when using public trackers for new content is to set up a max seeding ratio and whatever relevant *arrs. Doing it that way means that I’ve usually been able to download the content and stop seeding before the swarm is discovered/monitored by those sending the notices.

I’m definitely not an expert, but I’ve been using Whatbox for many years without any issues. I’m based in the US and have it set up to autocharge the same card that I use for everything else. I do not use a VPN or anything else to access Whatbox.

I have received plenty of DMCA notices from Whatbox over the years, and they just require you to delete the offending content within 24 hours or your account will be locked until you do.

In fact, I vaguely recall them increasing my storage allowance a few years ago without raising my rate, so that was pretty cool.

I pay $15/month for a seedbox because I prefer the overall experience compared to Netflix, etc. My parents have given me their login details for the services they subscribe to, and every so often, I check them out, but end up going back to my seedbox + Plex setup. Some of the reasons I prefer my piracy-based setup:

• I often set up a queue/playlist of shows, not necessarily all from the same series. As far as I’m aware, the streaming services let you do that.

• My shows never pause to ask me if I’m still watching.

• I can access an unlimited library of content without switching apps.

• Content won’t become unavailable if I try to access it from a different country or totally disappear when a contract expires.

• Some episodes of some shows have been edited/censored, or removed completely, from whatever streaming service hosts it, but those episodes are available in their original form via torrents.