For privacy to have inherent value, it first must be an established, inherent right. Unfortunately, the Constitution doesn’t talk about it to my knowledge. I’ve always inferred that our rights against unlawful search and seizure basically encapsulate the concept, but whatever.

How is paying more to said megacorp going to reduce their influence?

Hell the last few months it has been very noticable.

Fun fact: That’s not real milk. It’s just Elmer’s glue, they use it to stage the perfect shot.

There is some startup lag with that site. The whole VIP/freeleach/wedge system is a bit convoluted, but grabbing some popular free torrents and keeping them seeded will get you going in no time. It is easily the best community I’ve seen on a torrent site and those restrictions are probably a big reason why.