In my anarchist circles, other things are recommended before z-lib, which is a second-to-last resort.
There's an ebook piracy scheme that's been going on longer than z-lib, but it's a little bit more complicated to use than just a website, so it kinda flies under the radar.
> anarchist circles
Okay well, demanding ethical piracy from everyone except for the piracy that you use is pretty NIMBY of you.
And anyway, I'm not sure why you're being downvoted! This humorless website...
It's a bummer for humanity, but the people running z-lib should have known what they were getting into by charging for a fast lane.
My tracker gives you points based on site and IRC activity which you can use to buy invites and ratio.
Donation gives your username a different colour in the shoutbox. I think you can pick colour if you donate enough.
In my experience downloading books from IRC isn’t as annoying as getting them from zlibrary etc but the selection isn’t as good.
Pray tell.
slsk is also an old thing that sometimes surprises, though it's not the best for books
much newer is telegram bots for all sorts of things, from sci-hub replacement to general ebooks