Is there still pirate radio, and is there still a place for it i the 2010s?

First of all does pirate radio even still exist? I don't have a radio receiver on my hifi, never really thought I'd need one but I'm kind of interested now (on ebay I could easily get one for £15 inc. P+P), because when I was younger living in the country you didn't get pirate radio.

As for the second part of my question, do you think there is still a need/want for it in the coming decade?
The internet seems to be the modern answer to pirate radio - there are thousands of digital radio shows out there, and with podcasts, and generally the advent of filesharing, its ever-becoming easier to find new and good music.

Thoughts?

What's a Pirate's favorite noble gas?

Arrrrrr-gone.

I've posted about this on another pirate radio thread that I can't find at the moment, but with a lot of the international broadcasters gone and SDRs ridiculously cheap, shortwave radio has largely become a free-for-all zone of broadcast anarchy. Case in point: yesterday, someone identifying themselves only as WDOG got on 6295kHz and...

https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/114/203/443/872/165/340/original/de282c53e8137ea6.jpeg

https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/114/203/444/188/360/465/original/f3e7884a9e50fd38.jpeg

more WDOG listening reports at: https://www.hfunderground.com/board/index.php/topic,142508.0.html

<3

Used to be a shortwave listener as a kid—maybe time to revisit my old hobby?

SDRs have upended the hobby so much that you don't even need a radio anymore. Want to control a shortwave receiver at the University of Twente in the Netherlands? Go to http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901 and start the audio. https://peanutpower.co.uk/websdr shows you how to control it. There are a hundred or so web-based SDRs out there. http://websdr.org is mostly up-to-date, but if you want to go any further check out HFUnderground or the shortwave and RTLSDR subreddits.

Alternatively if you just want to listen in on what you can receive locally you can pick-up a SDR usb dongle for $40 and listen to most of the radio spectrum with just your laptop. https://www.rtl-sdr.com gets into the details.

Okay I know there’s web radio but I’m having a hard time understanding listening to over the air signals…by internet?

You're listening over the web to a radio physically in the Netherlands (or wherever), so you hear what can be tuned in at that location.

Also because SDRs run entirely in software - multiple people can be listening to different frequencies and modes all on the same radio server.