In theory. In practice, most just can't be bothered using private trackers because of this. Hard to get into, hard to keep up - you have to be a dedicated archivist just to use them. Which is the polar opposite of why people have been torrenting in the past - piracy had less friction than using licensed content.

Rutracker works differently, they aren't afraid of snatch-and-run. They managed to build a community out of those dedicated archivists. So the volunteers keep the rare content afloat, and the tracker can also be open and usable by ordinary people as well (which keeps popular content afloat). This approach also has its flaws, of course.

> generous freeleech and gift token events

That's what saved the what.cd economy, which had generous freeleech and gift token events. RED does it differently, and has stingy and ineffective freeleech and gift token events. On wcd, staff picks were freeleech, and that ensured people were able to download and seed, and there was free liquidity.

RED's lack of large freeleech events has meant that most people on the site don't have much buffer, and can't just download what they like. It's functionally a forced recession due to lack of liquidity.

Basically an internet version of this: https://yathartharora.substack.com/p/53-the-babysitting-rece...