I think most would much rather screw the middleman (Subscription services, publishers, etc) pirate the material, and then send money directly to the creator if they like them.

I don’t like that these businesses can tell you that you’re gonna get something but hide the actual pertinent details like:

no refunds
the game isn’t even completed and you’ll have to buy DLC to see the rest
big streaming company offers this resolution and bitrate but what we don’t tell you is that we don’t guarantee that for every device

People have no problem buying an item as it’s marketed, but when you start fucking with and scamming/tricking consumers is when you really kick the fucking hornets nest.

I’ve also seen others mention that sometimes pirating the material meant more freedom with the content they now own a copy of. With 3rd party self hosted streaming services you can do cool things like watch stuff with your friends, watch stuff when you’re away from home, etc.

There used to be a time prior to throw away consumerism where you bought something and it was yours. You buy a painting? It’s yours to resell. Buy a record? Play it with some friends or sell that too.

A long time ago these greedy piggy middleman stepped in and started inflating with bullshit tactics like reducing your degrees of freedom with your newly owned product.

They want you to believe in this new world where you don’t get physical anything, everything’s restricted, milked until bleeding, leaving everyone wondering why everything “sucks” all of a sudden.

Cough cough, tv, movies, games rn unless made my smaller studios

I’ve got an interesting book for you!

How Music Got Free (nonfic piece about 90s-early 2000s piracy)