When did that exist? The Napster era when when people just got free music from a central server and accidentally put viruses on their computer half the time? The 18th century on the seas when it was a lot more murder, actual theft, and worse?

Piracy has never been about the culture or game preservation or whatever. It’s about getting free stuff for 99% of pirates. There are people across the spectrum with additional motivations, for instance maybe somebody was annoyed by the state of streaming and it drove them to piracy. But at the end of the day, the vast majority people are downloading the stuff they want because it’s 1) free and 2) available to them.

I fully support piracy but I also don’t pretend it’s some high-minded philosophical reason. There are moments where that element comes into play for me, especially when it comes to losing media, but I’m not going to sit here and pretend that is the number one reason anyone opens up Pirate Bay or whatever came before.