Ironically mine started without nefarious connotations.... The family computer in the mid 80s was a minor novelty to me for ages, only good for simple text games really. Then...

My brother grabbed a cracked game toward 1990 off a BBS. The game itself I don't even remember, but it had a cracktro that stunned me. Graphics I'd never seen, actual music out our little adlib card... Was crazy enticing.

Being stuck in the Midwest US while enamored with DemoScene is a hell of a drug. Every few kb down that modem was like crack.

That then opened a new world of games as well... Things my older brother had no interest in. Things my parents obviously would not have allowed. You know... The Good Shit ™️.

Obviously once codecs caught up video and audio quickly became a thing. My closest buddy and I would burn stack after stack of CDs to take a spindle at a time over to share between us and others.

Then the data hoarding set in... What good is just having these shiny things for yourself when you can share? True joy doesn't exist without spreading it to others.

The sickness persists... Stronger than ever despite becoming a pessimistic old man. Multiple gigabit connections: check. 200tb arrays just for torrents: check. Seed times tracked in years: check.

Remember when 14.4k was the most epic thing for grabbing those disks at lightning speed? I certainly do.