For anyone looking to dip their toes in the seven seas
Soulseek is a peer to peer media sharing network akin to limewire
yt-dlp i a command line Youtube video/audio downloader that does hq
https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp
KissAnime for streaming anime: https://kissanime.com.ru/
Similar sites that let you stream movies/shows/manga are aggregated on sites like TheBestCouchPotatoList:
You can find most free streaming sites through google/duckduckgo searches or pirating communities like the r/Piracy sub on reddit
Anything else can be found on torrent sites, which are usually aggregated on sites like TheProxyBay or r/piracy
Possibly unpopular take, besides google corporate greed, YT hosts more stuff then pirating sites, unpopular things are less likely to be pirated, so pirate repos are somewhat curated. Less content, and no leeching executives means less costs means less ads needed.
Actually, I mostly pirate things I can't find to stream with a reasonably-priced subscription, or without ads, and unless we're talking 15-plus-year-old shows or "animes" I've heard about that turn out to be Hentai, I generally find what I'm looking for, with seeds.
Hell, I'm sure if I could be bothered to find a Hentai-centric pirate site, or joined a private tracker, I wouldn't have a problem finding anything for free.
When I mean unpopular I mean like a random 7 hour minecraft stream vod watched by 1 reviewer, a 32 episode podcast with 15 views, etc. Hardly anyone is looking for those, but YT hosts it, and it costs them. Alot of that stuff wont be found on other file share websites, thus its not taking up space or adding costs. I dont mean that they are limited, I agree you can find about anything in the right place, including some of those vods with 15 views.