Seedboxes are great when used with private trackers, but the trackers usually have very strict rules about which clients you can use, how long you must seed, etc.
Rent a seedbox from a company not based in the US, under a pseudonym, and use cryptocurrency for payments. This is surprisingly common.
> Is this where private trackers come into play?
The main benefit of using a private tracker is access to high-quality content: no mislabeled content, no audio lag, etc.
A side benefit of using private trackers (instead of public ones) is that you probably won't get any trouble from your ISP or any law firms.
> How does one who's not immersed in the community obtain access to private trackers?
Some trackers have Open Invite periods where anyone can join. You can use your membership there as a foothold into other private trackers.
The biggest drawback I've found is that I did have to make an account with opensubtitles to have automatic subtitles, and if you try to load too many pieces of media at once you may run into the 50 api's downloads per day limit for free accounts.