The usefullness of their activities is they are gradually getting rid of the easiest form of piracy. It is so easy to pirate via HTTP. When you make it unviable to profit via HTTP downloads, the bad guys will move to torrents. You can then sue the uploaders. Or get the torrent site shut down. Or cripple their ability to accept donation or profit from ad networks.
Whatever can be done to make it harder for Joe Public to pirate and easier to whip out their credit card, the better. You're average surfer is not going to get into FTP sites, newsgroups or use Frostwire to download a 500mb porn movie.
One pornographer, going by the username "AdultKing", is leading a campaign on closing file lockers that profit from illegal uploads by incentivising with affiliate programs.
He is systematically contacting the payment processors for these websites and getting their accounts closed due to the child pornography, bestiality and copyrighted content found on their servers.
$82,000 was the acquisition price or the seed funding? If not, how much was Reddit bought for by Conde Nast, if you don't mind me asking?
Has Reddit been truely profitable? It gets massive traffic... but does not look like it is monetized very well. And it must get some of the worst demographics for mass consumer advertisers to sell to.
Whatever can be done to make it harder for Joe Public to pirate and easier to whip out their credit card, the better. You're average surfer is not going to get into FTP sites, newsgroups or use Frostwire to download a 500mb porn movie.