This kind of thing may explain why some people here think piracy is worse than it used to be. You are oblivious to what actually happened in the past, even after the DMCA.
Far from downloading compressed images, software was custom made to collect and sort images, and images were not collected on the basis of whether they induced a boner, but by their
CRC. If the CRC did not match what was in the CSV file for that particular image set, then the collectors wouldn't even keep the image, however much, by sight, it resembled the original. IOW they went to great lengths to make sure what they collected, and distributed, was the actual image from the site.
Personally I found that whole thing way too sad, obsessive and pointless, but the fact you are apparently unaware that it even happened demonstrates how clueless you are on this subject.
The only people who stole crappy compressed images were the people in the 'industry' - reaming each other, and their paying customers, back then, just as now - before they went 'legal' and become DMCA crazy in the 2000s; because the only time anyone
really gives a rat's about piracy is when
their own content is being 'stolen'.
If you accept how small sites were, with primarily image sets, why do you find it hard to believe you can download a full website on dialup? I once downloaded a 500mb video on dialup in the late 90s. IIRC it took about 2 days, which sounds about right because it was about 15/20 minutes for an mp3 of about 3/4mb. So in theory lets say 6GB a month on dialup non-stop. And there were plenty of people downloading (and uploading) 24/7.
150K is way too high an average image size even for a decade ago. But even at that size you could download well over 1,000 images a day on dialup.
Nobody sat there at their screen watching their downloads either. Set the download going, go to bed, wake up the next day to the latest pristine, uncompressed CRC-authentic picture sets from Suze Randall, MacAndBumble or whoever.
Yep, major well established companies are going to the wall and entire countries are collapsing, but keep dreaming that porn lives in its own bubble and is somehow immune from that.
Keep dreaming than when people are worse off due to the recession and are forced to cut expenses where they can, they'll always keep that $30/month subscription going.