I've determined it's basically impossible to do that if you don't own a dedicated high-bandwidth seedbox

Completely untrue. I don't have a seedbox, never had one, and I keep perfectly fine ratios on two different private trackers. One has a ratio of 56 I think, the other (the one I use the most) has a ratio of 4.5, both just have a minimum requirement ratio of 0.5 i think before you're kicked.

I just have a computer on my home network, which is also the media server.

I've been in numerous private trackers and all of them offer bonus points from seeding that you can use to 'buy' ratio if people aren't downloading from you. You might also ensure that you have port forwarding setup if nobody is ever connecting to you because even though I rarely ever get a lot of seed ratio, I usually get something on most files and this is all through my home internet connection.

Massively depends on the private tracker. Some have a hard economy where you must seed every byte, but there are plenty of trackers that have bonus points based on seed time and torrent size which you can exchange for download allowances.

Some easy to get in trackers are torrentleech and seedpool, AFAIK both of them have open signups occasionally.

Ive got a Raspberry Pi (from back when they were cheap) and a USB HDD that chugs along just fine in the background. My upload speed is utter shit (rarely exceeds 1MB/s) but I've still uploaded terabytes of data. All you need is the ability to just leave the server running in the background.

this is very much untrue. I've just got a home connection and manage fine.

Actually joining is the easy part.

Building ratio is the commitment and major hurdle. It's costs a bunch of money or time. A years long project. That can be shortened with money on a seedbox like you said. But it's a project you only need to do once. I did it a couple decades ago. Now I don't think of it. I can get almost anything at any time. It's absolutely worth it.

There are private trackers where you can earn a currency based on seeding uptime, not actual upload. Then you can spend the currency to get more download buffer. Farm the currency by just downloading and seeding a bunch of freeleech stuff.

A seedbox is cheaper than a single streaming subscription. A high end one isn't necessary. It's definitely worth it. Most private trackers allow you to make requests for content that isn't already on the site.

In most private trackers, you get bonus points for availability that you can use to maintain your ratio.

I don't know why you're getting pushback on this, what you're saying is 100% correct. I spent around a decade just using Usenet and not bothering with torrents. Then I got into one highly sought after private tracker. I spent several months not downloading a thing except freeleech to create a buffer, which was going absolutely nowhere. Then recently I decided to test out this seedbox thing I'd heard so much about. I set it up to automatically download freeleech torrents the second they're posted. Even with that setup I discovered that I still can't get a 1:1 ratio. A bot that downloads the freeleech torrent the instant it's posted still only achieves a 0.5 ratio. It's madness. Within 20 minutes of being posted, the torrent will have 150 seedbox users seeding it and no one else will be able to upload a single byte.

Before this I was manually downloading freeleech torrents that I found interesting, and was literally getting a 0 ratio by doing that. Now I know why. This system encourages everyone to buy seedboxes, which then makes it impossible for regular Joe shmoes to use private trackers, unless they signed up back in 2013 or something

Your assessment is correct for particular private trackers. I belong to several and they all operate in different ways with different rules. What you are describing is my experience with trackers like TorrentLeech, my least preferred tracker. But on the other end of the spectrum is a tracker like Seedpool, where it is very easy to maintain a ratio just by keeping your client online with some data available.

Private trackers can be very accommodating and useful without a seedbox. Just find one that suits you. They are not all the same.

I prefer private trackers that permit cross seeding and decent rewards for making data available over time (in lieu of focusing just on how much data you transmitted).

Several trackers also freely give data buffer just for interacting with the site on a regular basis. Some have simple daily tasks like commenting or thanking an uploader. Others just want you to click a button and voila, you have 20 gigs free to use everyday.

That is not true. I have a home server on a mid level connection, and it works perfectly for maintaining ratio as long as your ports are forwarded correctly so you remain connectable.

I've been on a few different private trackers since the early 2010s and I had 1-5mbps upload for like a decade and I've never had any issues with ratio on any of them

I've determined it's basically impossible to do that if you don't own a dedicated high-bandwidth seedbox. That costs a bunch of money

I pay $6 or $7/mo for Ultra.CC and it's 1TB storage with 4TB monthly bandwidth. I never exceed the bandwidth, but the 1TB allows you to seed for quite some time. I set rules to keep stuff until a minimum 10:1 seed ratio, and some rare stuff for 50:1. Some stuff is so minimal/small, it's there indefinitely.

Seedboxes are as expensive as a 1080p netfliix sub.
I pay about 15€ per month for one and not even have to bother with maintenance.
And usenet can get DMCAd very quickly on popular stuff.
Had a relative request a file that was about 1 day old and already had broken binaries.

I misread...

Sure, if you refuse to pay for things that have a cost, it severely limits your options in life. Good luck with that.