I'm enjoying the read guys.
I can relate to a ton of your points.
When I first started downloading shitty Japanese 128kbps albums online (like many OGs on here it seems), I did it because I was a kid first off haha.
I downloaded everything I could listen to because I was in love with Japanese music, and it sounded so great to me. I went out of my way and got a ton of my friends hooked, and played it nonstop in the car, at school, and made mixtape after mixtape of the songs I enjoyed. This defined my future with music.
I never knew how to get my hands on the actual CD's though, but that was not necessary because the point of file-sharing was so that I didn't have to.
Now I want to clarify: This was music I could not get outside of the USA, or was harder to obtain/process of finding it was too much effort than it needed to be.
I had the means to buy local, and I always did.
Why try and waste hours of my day trying to get the latest Linkin Park CD for free, when I could just go to the store and buy it in 10 minutes?
Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I appreciate file-sharing for what it is.
I have never taken it for granted, and it led to the beautiful discovery of other genres of music that would have been wayyyyy out of my budget at the time.
Did that mean that I was never deserving of listening to all that music in the first place? I think that's a terrible way of looking at it.
I feel that I've paid my respects by playing the artists music until my ears bleed, and I'm returning those efforts made by the uploaders by contributing what I can and preserving VK for those who join tomorrow through Monochrome Heaven as a moderator.
I try and buy the releases that I can when they are reasonably priced. I feel that along with others who have stated here, there has to be an agreement to lower the cost of the media to us internationally.
Also, the consensus seems to be that since its 2018, the music industry needs to step their game up, and make their music more available to the masses.
I completely agree.
Had streaming services existed back in the 90's, I think I would have gone that route, as listening to the music was my main goal.
At the same time, I would not be as tech savvy as I am now (and I wouldn't have pursued a career in Information Security) and the process of file sharing to have not existed would mean that I would never have stumbled across the sites, the people, and the music itself to which I spent years losing sleep in pursuit of.
This topic is something that I know all too well, and I'll be damned if we are trying to get rid of a system that has been a vital source for music exposure and preservation worldwide, with no concrete substitute by the music industry and technology, as well as lack of support of.