When I am able to pay content creators directly, I do. I am not a pirate, myself, though I have pirated in the past. I think some of the rationale behind pirating derives from intolerance of anti-consumer practices. If I’m paying for a streaming service, I shouldn’t be forced to watch ads. If I’m paying for a game, there shouldn’t be day one DLC-gated content, especially if that content is already part of the game and the DLC does little more than unlock it (I’m looking at you Bioware).
Pirating isn’t always about stealing for the sake of using or watching something for free. It can be about that, sure, but it isn’t always. Often, it’s about punishing entities for bad practices—for treating customers unfairly, for instance, or for restricting access to content.
And usually the people who make decisions that negatively affect customers are removed from the creation of the content itself. It’s kind of sad, really.
