Retro forum taboos: Why roms and not reproductions and pirate carts?

[Emperor Megas]

What I don't like is the whole "donor cart" thing, and how for every repro made there's another game lost forever. This is okay when its something dirt common like Super Mario Bros, but I've heard of people using fairly rare games as donor carts (someone on these very forums once used Bandit Kings of Ancient China as a donor) and that kind of thing just scares me.

In the case of rarer games, I feel the same way.

"Donor carts" concerns me as well. With websites like retrousb selling boards and cases, I believe it is unacceptable to kill a video game that didn't need to die.

Don't you think it's better that they get repurposed than to just sit unused in someone's attic, a landfill, or some thrift store's shelf, never to be purchased or played?