Just wondering what a rough split is of people using either Usenet, torrents, or both?
I’ve only just discovered Usenet and while it is paid, it is very cheap and much more convenient than torrents.
Using torrents as well with the *arr suite set up for my various Linux ISOs.
I pay for one Usenet provider/indexer. I also still use tons of torrent sources.
90% of the time, stuff that I’m monitoring gets downloaded via Usenet for currently airing or rather new shows.
50% of the time when actively looking for stuff from the past 5-10 years I use Usenet, the other half is torrents
90% of stuff older than that, I only find torrents
100% of non-English stiff I get from torrents (I’m subscribed to an English Usenet indexer though, so that tracks).
In short: Why not use both?
Do things on usenet get purged? Would you expect the stuff showing up today to still be accessible in 5-7 years?
Yes, they do!! With torrents, it just takes a single seeder to keep the torrent alive, but Usenet isn’t peer to peer - you’re downloading stuff from a centralized server(s), and they simply cannot keep everything alive forever.
IMO it’s fine though. Usenet provides you with very timely access to all the “newest” stuff, in excellent, very consistent quality.
And for older stuff, there’s torrents.
Even without seeders, you can sometimes be lucky and resurrect old torrents that have been kept in cache by providers such as real debrid
So do some encoders and web-rippers.
And usually Usenet does lend quite a bit of releases you usually see on private indexers or some publics.