Yes, I pirate for many reasons. Money used to be the main one when I didn’t have any. Today, fortunately, I’m doing very well, but I still do it because it’s much more convenient than adapting to each of the streaming platforms, or because I access uncensored material (music and shows). For example, I’m a big fan of South Park, and the only way to access several episodes is by pirating them. My family pays for the family plan of all the major streaming services, so if I wanted to access them legally, I could, but God, I’ll never do it. I really find it all pathetic.

Regarding software, I try to avoid using anything that requires payment. I donate anonymously to many open-source projects: Cryptomator, GrapheneOS, Electrum, Veracrypt, Librewolf, WG Tunnel, and VLC. I pay for the premium versions of Bitwarden and ProtonMail. And that’s it, that’s all.

Indie games are worth the experience if you pay for them. Triple AAA games? I don’t do that shit anymore. Anything from modern slop i don’t pirate at all. But what i’ll pirate is older content, TV Shows, and Movies from the two past decades.

Indie games and open source projects are worth paying for imo

Many games I try out as pirated and then buy them after I know I enjoy them. Sometimes I don’t enjoy them and then I’m glad I didn’t spend $60.

I don’t pirate software anymore. If I do the math on how much enjoyment I get even from a mediocre AAA game title, it is dwarfed by what I’d spend on a night out, so the value is there for me. On top of that the risk of malware (or the effort in mitigating it) isn’t really worth it.

Tv and movies? Pirate it. The streaming services are garbage and the content has too much crap for me to want to pay a corporation for it. If it became too hard to pirate I just wouldn’t watch it anymore.

Books kind of fall in the middle. Happy to pay for ebooks if the author makes it practical, but I’m not keen on buying through Amazon.