I suppose it's mainly because of the organisation and easy of use. I'm NOT try to say Alt.Binz is "UN"easy to use, but Newzbin is very slick.
You have a lot of people organising the posts into very useful catagories, they have done the donkey work and labelled each post with all the attributes, so that when I decide I want a "
Xvid or Divx encoded movie, DVD rip or higher equivalent, no cams, with dutch subs (no thanks usually for me) of Movie XYZ" it really is as simple as "type,click,click,download".
Some simple things as well as say a URL link besides the post in question can be very useful in deciding if you've found the correct thing (yes I have heard of google - but I like being spoilt).
Also the comments section has saved me downloading Gigs of stuff in the past only to discover that it was either worthless or the release is flawed somehow.
The relatively strict moderating of comments AND granting of editor status to users is actually a breath of fresh air in this current internet climate of "gimme gimme, I can do it, I have a right to do this, I want, I need, do this for me" mentality of websites. Sometimes rules are good - and Newzbin shines in professionalism because of it.
There's no one item that stands above the others. It's a combo off all, and the outcome is a site that is greater than the sum of it's parts.
The fact that it costs around 20p a week is really neither here nor there at my stage of life, but I do remember a time when it would have been a consideration.
Try it, you might just like being spoilt for a change....