concerning the educational aspect, i'm not sure what exactly you mean. while today e.g. software engineering knowledge is all out there, back then there was no github and stackoverflow and i had to learn a lot from books (basic, c, assembler). the freely available resources were lower quality, that is tutorials by crackers or demo scene coders.
i completely lost interest in pirated media these days as they provides minimal value to me. the few albums/movies/games which are relevant to me, i'm easily able to buy. the only exception might indeed be textbooks on specialized technical topics, which often aren't of interest for the warez scene audience.
I was involved in the warez scene as a cracker and a trader around the turn of the century. In a way it was a fun scene with groups that had strict hierarchies as in companies, the community aspect was strong, you could earn fame if you worked hard enough for it and had the skill, which was all pretty fascinating for us youngsters spending their nights in front of their PCs. In hindsight though, it was flatout stupid to participate in illegal activities over unencrypted IRC channels and FTP sites located at universities with hundreds of users. There were bouncers/tcp-tunnels and stuff, but many didn't care to use them. Things got scary when some of my affiliates got busted in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Buccaneer. Thankfully I got out without getting my ass burned.
concerning the educational aspect, i'm not sure what exactly you mean. while today e.g. software engineering knowledge is all out there, back then there was no github and stackoverflow and i had to learn a lot from books (basic, c, assembler). the freely available resources were lower quality, that is tutorials by crackers or demo scene coders.
i completely lost interest in pirated media these days as they provides minimal value to me. the few albums/movies/games which are relevant to me, i'm easily able to buy. the only exception might indeed be textbooks on specialized technical topics, which often aren't of interest for the warez scene audience.