technology

I asked people to consider how "piracy" can actually help establish corporate dominance of proprietary software or at the very least not challenge it.

You want to talk about "deeply unserious" since you've taken it there? Piracy is a deeply unserious term. No one is stealing anything. It's just copying the program and distributing it in violation of the program's license as well as cracking or breaking whatever DRM or copyright protection mechanism may be built into the program. It's done out of cost, breaking anti-user DRM or for the crackers own profit. Piracy was created as a term to serve the purpose of doing what you think I'm doing with my "freeloader" remark: ostracizing people and punishing them.

If you're going to tell me that "it's reclaimed" or "everyone uses it so its okay" then this conversation is over because I have nothing more to say to that.

Maybe I shouldn't have chosen those words, but what I was getting at was that people who use cracked copies of nonfree software still contribute to that software's growth. I didn't mean for that to attack anyone in particular. Piracy is a corporate, anti user term and we should stop using it. Adobe banks on both paying and non-paying customers and you aren't hurting them at all by using cracked/unlawful copies. It's still a network effect, the more people who use Adobe will lead to more and more people using it.

Supporting an open source project requires specific knowledge and/or money,

Or just using and learning about it. You don't need to be a programmer to contribute to projects but saying this makes it seem that way. Using free software over proprietary software is praxis just by itself. I'm not naive enough to say that's always possible, but it's the only way to prevent further harm.

I can't support this FOSS project because I'm broke and don't know how the fuck to code, and I also I can't use this stolen copy of Adobe because someone might find out, guess I'll starve" doesn't make any sense.

This is an overexaggeration of what I said. Generally speaking, we can contribute/partipate in systems of abuse out of necessity or without meaning to. Also no one is saying you should starve stop being dramatic we aren't fucking redditors.

I''m not condemning those who are forced to use Adobe for their livlihood (or at least I didn't wish to). I was pushing back on the shallow narrative that "piracy" is the end all be all and not thinking about how they still can contribute to the issue.

I didn't mean this as a personal attack on anyone (unless maybe to people who call themselves software pirates, which is cringe imo) and I'm sorry if it came out that way.

im a 3D artist, I work with maya, substance and mari, I depend on studios offering me work to make a living. So according to you guys I'm supposed to go up to my fucking Lead and tell him, "I no longer wish to be dependent on Autodesk, Foundry and Adobe's ecosystems and will now exclusively use Gimp and Blender." I suddenly have to throw away years of built up skills on pirated stuff because ackshually piracy is just as bad as enabling the software through a studio's licensed versions if you end up working for one? What the fuck?

Deeply unserious take and completely divorced from reality, sure I could try freelance using Blender but I probably wouldn't make it because successful Blender artists are more influencers than actual professionals, and my social media presence is barely measurable.