If you have Spotify, there are tools to rip directly from it (like actually from spotify. Unlike those find on spotify but actually download from youtube tools)

TL has more of a focus on visual media.

Personally I use nyaa for japan/asia focused music, web searches or soulseek for anything else (primarily flac and failback to mp3).
If I feel inclined, I’ll buy the album/tracks.

To get in you could in theory join communities like r/openSignups and other similar communities.
The tracker TL will probably open signups soon during Easter.

For me, I am too much of a control freak in regards to ratio vs quality.
If a family member requests it, I’ll take a manual look.
Only a few profiles were actually tuned (mainly only the anime profile) to be run unattended and automatically.

I’d have no issues with artists doing a limited sale and refusing to keeping the digital article alive.
You deny my money, I’ll deny your request to not view it. :-)

I will continue to prefer a seedbox (rented or shared/dedicated vps).
At least I can use private trackers.

:-)

You could limit the firewall to IP range(s) of your domestic (and other places of interest like work) connection.
This way they won’t come even close to even logging in.
And then you could do the other hardening on top.

There are still countries other than the US.

Private trackers have usually most stuff.
Only with very rare or obscure content it depends on where you are.
Some trackers specialize in specific genres or regions (e.g. horror or latino/asian).

Couldnt OP use the boot loader feature of Windows and add their distro as anotger option?

Already fiddling around enough with tge stuff I do with my PC which I installed Win11 on and I am in the EU meaning less BS than the US version (no forced upgrades, no ads (as described by US citizens) and so on).

I use Debian on my server as it’s a tool. Same for my pc. And I have a steamdeck.
And every tool has it’s worth no matter if it’s made from shitty chinesium or baller titanium.
I like the way Windows handles most things and I prefer it over having to fiddle with the way every Linux distro does it’s own thing (and I will never use Ubuntu).

I tried out shell coding with copilot (xml manipulation and merging).
I gave up. Not worth the sanity.

lol.
With the current trend I feel like the neonazis AfD will put us right back to Temu-Hitler (Trump) and Putin.

Weird.
Mine is just Anime, vtuber, tech (the good kind) and edutainment (e.g. kurzgesagt, real engineering, ezc.).

Maybe you engage heavily in political content because I mostly avoid it like the plague.

Didnt even know Civ had a story. Only played Civ6 and didnt really bother looking to hard as I just expected a turn based strategy game.

And that’s totally okay, if you are fine with it.

You can’t compare open end games like Minecraft and Civ with a mainly story based game like GTA.
What you do after the campaign is your issue.
I just say that it’s understandable if you compare it to traditional media.

I will maybe buy it once it’s on sale.
No way in hell will I buy it for full price lol.

And the price creep will come because you and me are a very quiet minority in comparison to the casual games that buy a nee console solely to play the newest GTA or CoD.

Got my steam deck. I am fine without a switch.
Nothing lost and if I’d need it, emulation works good enough.

At least this game may be worth it if it’s $/h.
Nintendos game might be <40hours long of pure campaign (excluding open world games like pokemon)