Fwiw, piratebay continues to be the -to my knowledge- biggest public tracker out there, with basically every media production available.
And I think that was his point. They may ruin some people's life's... but aside from that, they achieve nothing.
Those are just crappy replicas of 'The Pirate Bay'. Full of annoying junk ads. 1337x is probably the biggest public tracker.
Just visited two nights ago and was pleasantly surprised to see domains active with fresh magnets. The people are returning to nature.