𝗠𝘆 𝟯𝗿𝗱 𝘂𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻:
RARBG is a torrenting site that was shut down by the owners on May 31,
2023.
It was hands down objectively one of the best torrenting site for movies. They had super high quality rips that you just couldn't find elsewhere (i.e. 20GB+ file sizes). Overall, they did many things right that other torrent sites simply lacked, such as introducing H.265 formats, listing the movie metadata on the torrent page, or a conveniently-placed section of all the latest
popular movies.
The only thing that won't be missed is those rowdy discussion threads. It was like a circlejerk for hundreds of cis-males (likely 20s to early 40s) to vent their hatred towards women, minorities and everything else they perceive as
woke. Literally every comment on every damn movie torrent has to have someone criticizing how
woke a movie is, or some satirical joke. And if someone has an
opinion that goes against the RARBG hivemind,
people start dogpiling on them. It's like
4chan.
Moderation was also wack
AF. I've had a total of five router changes these past
5 years, and for every new IP address I've been promptly banned from the comments for just expressing an
opinion about the comments. And yet they just let the dozens of other
toxic, distasteful commenters run amok.
𝗧𝗟;𝗗𝗥 𝗥𝗔𝗥𝗕𝗚 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗯𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗚𝗢𝗔𝗧𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝗮 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝘀𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗧𝗣𝗕... 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝘂𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. 𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀. 𝗚𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗽𝘀. 𝗕𝗮𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝘀.
The last message from the site owners, as seen on RARBG.to, explaining the reason behind the shut down:
"Hello guys,
We would like to inform you that we have decided to shut down our site.
The past 2 years have been very difficult for us - some of the
people in our team died due to covid complications,
others still suffer the side effects of it - not being able to work at all.
Some are also fighting the war in Europe - ON BOTH SIDES.
Also, the power price increase in data centers in Europe
hit us
pretty hard.
Inflation makes our daily expenses impossible to
bare.
Therefore we can no longer
run this site without massive expenses that we can no longer cover out of pocket.
After an unanimous vote we've decided that we can no longer do it.
We are sorry :(
Bye"