If you are basic, then Torrentleech will cover 99.999% of your needs. It costs a few $ to join (a one time fee, and you get 1 month of free VPN), or just sign up for r/opensignups, and wait until they are open for registrations (typically once per year).

If you are too old for trackers, then just sign up for usenet. You will have to pay for it though.

> The private trackers I've heard of are not open… From what I understand they also maintain ratios and seeders race to get credit for newly uploaded files. Its the 2026 version of the 90s warez courier scene

TBF this isn’t a revival of some arch 90s thing, this is just how private trackers have been. What was the same in the aughts, for instance.

They're not especially closed and minimum ratio really isn't all that hard to maintain (if it's even required). There are usually mechanisms by which ratio isn't zero sum.

>or you have to pay to join (lol!)

Why lol? Still better value than paying the IP holder what they want. And maintaining well curated torrent platforms costs money.

> or you have to pay to join (lol!)

There are zero good private trackers that you can pay for to enter. Buying invites will get you banned, and paying the site directly is only possible on scummy trackers.

There is a lot of good information here [0]. Most notably RED is open via interviews conducted on IRC, and has a big invite forum to join other trackers. But yes, they do force you to contribute through maintaining your ratio.

[0] https://igwiki.lyci.de/wiki/Private_trackers

Seedpool has regular open registrations, no fee, lots of freeleech content. You can pay $10 for a VPS that gives you a TL membership and get 5 TB upload credit with a couple hours of effort. All you have to do is seed and sign in like once a month to show you are still active.

for quality control, amount of seeders, internal encoders. heaps of stuff to avoid issues like this as well. as someone has said TorrentLeech will cover 99% of people's use cases with buying seedbox as entry only. you only want to get to cabal trackers when you really need top quality remuxes which I don't think you'll get invited without any efforts as well

You can get into some not paying. You're just required to either have a minimum ratio or share several days, whatever's reached sooner (so you don't get stuck sharing something nobody wants for eternity).

In practice, it's just adding an API key, setting a rule in the app to remove after x and then you can go back to ignoring it.

> they also maintain ratios

This can get stupid sometimes like when they're expecting everybody to keep over 1.0 when there are people with 10.0; but usually when they're doing that it's because it's a scammy tracker (all private trackers that you have to pay to join are scammy no exceptions) and they're trying to extort people who fall below 1.0 to give them money.

But expecting people to upload is part of the deal. That's not about being old, that's about being selfish. Non-scammy private trackers make it very easy, and some just concentrate on gatekeeping and don't worry about ratios at all.

Your basic point is very true, though. The way many private trackers have lasted is to stop letting people in almost entirely. To get into a non-scammy tracker you have to know somebody irl who is on and active, and they still might not be able to get you in. Or they will pretend like they can't - inviters sometimes get punished for the quality of the people they invite, and you think sharing back is something children do.

A good private tracker will give you upload credit for keeping the torrent seeded even if no one downloads.

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I'm on them for over 10 years. Last time I've cared about ratio was 9.

idk if there are fellow Ukrainians reading it, but I remember getting an account somewhere in exchange for an AFU donation. just a screenshot from your bank app confirming that the payment is within a few days of sending a registration application, and you are in. that tracker also had decent English originals somewhere, and a friend who's there tells that experience is great, but for foreigners he'd advise to turn on Google Translate or whatever.

the point is, some trackers don't even take these one-time payments for themselves and still provide service on the level as if you pay tenfold of that, monthly, to them.

It sounds like you are more interested in complaining and arguing online, rather than solving your problems.

Meanwhile, I joined my first private tracker 3 years ago, and now I am in all of them (ptp, btn, etc). I do not have to worry about the ratios (cross-seed is set and forget), and after awhile you have more "upload" and "ratio" then you need for a lifetime. I barely have to seed anymore. I log in once in a while, but otherwise do not have to participate in the communities, and the selection is awesome (they basically have everything, even Mexican B movies from the 1940s, whatever floats your boat). They saturate my fiber when I download too.

But do keep complaining and arguing, you will feel better.

I've found the best way to do private trackers is to seed everything you download, all the time. If you seed enough of the long tail of things, ratio becomes easier. This also helps people get into a show that peaked a few years ago (after most of the seeders have moved on), which can be harder on public trackers.

You can join private trackers for free if someone invites you. Ratio and minimum seed times are requirements.