An interesting counterexample is the many private trackers that do just fine off of crypto donations. Without naming names I'm personally aware (as in, I can go

An interesting counterexample is the many private trackers that do just fine off of crypto donations. Without naming names I'm personally aware (as in, I can go look at the donation status pages) of at least four that rake in $500+/mo with a small fraction of TPB's usercount. I think this says more about the type of user who hits up TPB vs. the type of user who has accounts on private trackers - it's probably a reasonable generalization to say that a member of a private tracker has a higher level of tech sophistication, including with cryptocurrencies, than the average TPB visitor. Heck, my boomer relatives use TPB on occasion. Interactions with TPB are also a lot more ephemeral and anonymous - private trackers can give donators a cupcake forum icon or whatever whereas I'm sure 99+% of TPB visitors have never made an account and probably aren't even regular visitors. Similarly, users of private trackers are likely on average significantly more invested in the continued success of the site and therefore more willing to cough up, in contrast to many TPB visitors who probably ended up there via a general search and wouldn't really notice if they were grabbing a torrent from any of the other big public trackers. So, I think it's fair to say that expectations for certain types of sites - ones that have a low/no barrier to entry, are functionally replaceable units, serve less technically-inclined users, and have a rep for legal sketchiness - need readjusting. Others, especially ones that provide persistent, difficult-to-replace value for users, seem to do ok.