[bawolff]

> Z-library were in it for commercial gain (you could access a certain number of books but to get more you had to pay for a subscription). They started out as a fork of library genesis, whose mission has always been strictly non-commercial and about providing free access to everyone without limits.

Ick.

I'm sympathetic to piracy, but the moment people start to make money off of pirated works it starts to feel much more wrong.

[dghlsakjg]

The download limit was per day per ip address, and they would remove limits for active community members. I have a hard time believing they were doing anything more than paying for hosting bills.

[ezplorer]

They were not.

>Z-library were in it for commercial gain (you could access a certain number of books but to get more you had to pay for a subscription)<

That's a lie mixed with some truth. They have a download limit yes, but one that resets every 24 hours. You can download free 5 books even without an account, and with an account 10 and even more if you used the telegram bot. Like other user mentioned, that policy probaly was to discourage datahoarders and scrapers. And if you donated to the project you recieved the benefit of being able to download more books per day.

[flyingsky]

> [...] but the moment people start to make money off of pirated works it starts to feel much more wrong.

"Piracy" is expensive! Most people do not donate to support these things it's understandable if they decide to charge a few cents or bucks to keep the light on.

[acomjean]

Are you suggesting people who pirate don’t want to pay?