Here's the deal, there is NO free lunch, you get what you pay for basically.
I pay for internet service, a news indexer service and a newshosting service.
What does that get me?
Virtually every f**king game ever made, you name it, no matter how old or crappy.
Every movie ever made, every application ever made, every song ever made, every form of digital data you can think of.
It's not legal by definition. But anyone that thinks that we need all this service JUST for legit use is a flake.
I have broadband, and whatever I am downloading, it comes in at maximum speedall the way through the download, and it isn't being shared, it's coming to me, just me and only me. If you think torrents are cool just because they are free, well you just don't realize how much is actually out there to obtain.
Torrent = bicycle
Broadband with newsindexer+Giganews = space shuttle.
You do get what you pay for.
And if you are North American, you might have heard the term "throttling" which is currently all the latest buzz as the major ISPs are trying their best to throttle (hence the term) the use of torrents by torrent users.
Newsgroups perform at 5-600k on average for dsl broadband, a bit faster on cable. On a throttled broadband service you can assume 30-60 is your expected maximum during most hours. Try downloading something around 5 gigs at 30k
If you rarely download anything, none of the above really matters much though.
But with my newsindexer+Giganews, I could (if I felt like it) download a copy of every Nintendo DS game ever made in a single day without effort.
If you think rapidshare is "nice", picture this, my newsgroup can download DS roms faster than I can type in the game name into the search engine. Thus my download speed is limited only by my typing speed
And at this time, the RIAA and the MPAA and any other industry group, is apparently powerless to impact the use of newsgroups in any fashion.
That's what newsgroups are about.