#1, the Internet is really fast — and I don’t just mean end user’s Internet connection speeds, although that’s certainly part of it. What I mean is, things go online fast, word gets out fast, people connect to it fast … and unfortunately, often times it goes offline fast. Back when things moved a bit slower, fewer people found out about things; downloads were slower, word travelled slower, and these data deposits tended to last longer. Back in the days of rogue warez FTP sites, sites would so online, programs would begin to trickle into them, word of the sites would spread, people would connect, often taking programs and occasionally leaving other programs behind, and so on. Nowadayz, I have this mental image of an angry soccer mob who (virtually) shows up, drinks all your beer, screws yer mom, kicks yer dog, pees on the carpet and sets the place on fire on the way out. WOOHAH FR33 STUPHS OMG YAYYYY! When you put things online like big collections of manuals, it’s this soccer mob who shows up, downloads everything, kicks your dog and screws your mom (or was it the other way around?) and so on. Unfortunately, it’s this giant, leech-hungry mob that ends up doing in a lot of smaller repositories that can’t (or aren’t willing to) handle the kind of traffic you’re seeing.

And #2, I think these are being downloaded because they are for sale. A cursory search of eBay turned up lots of real manuals selling for $10 each. There are also CD compilations of arcade manuals selling for the same price. No doubt, the collection of manuals you have provided to the net will someday be for sale on eBay. Free > $10 — thus the downloading.

Be sure to hit the mirrors listed on the front page, of course, but certainly poke around and see what there is to see.