[LM358]

I don't know where you get that snobbish vibe from (maybe my comment, in which case it wasn't intentional), but of course it's easy to just use yt-dlp or whatever. The places I frequent come with curation, organization, quality control and a community of people who deeply care about music which is something I value a lot.

Seeding, uploading and staying in it for the long haul is a lot more work than just buying a Spotify subscription and certainly not for everyone, but as someone who is constantly disappointed by the selection available on streaming services and also need local files for DJing, I couldn't imagine living without it.

[Sakos]

I got the snobbish vibe from being in these communities and wasting my time on them. It's just another form of gatekeeping.

[LM358]

You do you. After the takedowns of its predecessors (Napster, Oink, What.cd) some quite literal gatekeeping is required IMO.