Yeah, if the sub was fairly small on Reddit it’s basically non existent here. I’m using both Lemmy and Reddit for now, hoping lemmy gets some good traction.

I’ve never had an experience like that on private trackers. Of the three I’ve used recently, one has no ratio tracking and just a “gentlemen’s agreement” that you seed back. One tracks ratio but doesn’t care about it, they only care that you seed back for X hours during a two week period or something like that, and the last one does track ratio, but you also get points for just seeding content even if nobody downloads from you, and you can use those points to get upload credit. None require a 1:1 ratio on anything.

I’ve never had problems keeping a good ratio on any of these sites, I just let them seed from my media server until I decide to delete them. I even use a fairly small upload bandwidth since my service provider only gives me like 10Mbps upload.

Speed, quality, safety, and seed status are the main benefits IMO. The downsides are you have to keep a good ratio or at least not hit and run.

Back when I used public sites I remember most torrents being slow, in private sites many people use a seed box so even if there are only a couple seeds it’s usually still blazing fast. Since uploaders in private sites have some reputation to upkeep, their releases will usually be quality. I also feel completely safe downloading something with only a couple seeds on private sites, but on public sites I worry if I’m downloading a virus if there are no comments and very few seeds.

The private sites are also usually not big enough for anyone to care about, so the chances of them being taken down or targeted are minimal.

I have also not gotten one ISP warning since moving over to private sites years ago, and that’s even with not using a VPN