Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

Pirating content with the intent to buy it after trying it out using the pirated version (e.G indie games)

I can't really trust that a game is worth the price tag anymore. So I treat piracy as a extended demo. If I feel the fun to price ratio is solid I'll buy the game.

I stopped going to cinema when the Hollywood movie cartel started messing with freedom on the internet, and I don't feel any remorse pirating Hollywood movies.

When I started earning enough to have disposable income, I made sure to buy ebooks and audiobooks, as well as supporting my favourite musicians on Bandcamp or by buying merch.

I believe online piracy is the uploading part, not the downloading. I think uploading has a much more narrow use case, but if everyone stopped we wouldn't be able to download.

I purchased Zelda BotW when it was 6ish months old. Didn't like it, didn't finish it.

I'm working on getting it now on the steam deck because it's critically acclaimed and I'd like to understand what other people like so much about it. It's also my young nephew's favorite game. Totally legal emulation if I were actually dumping my own firmware.

When I pirate Tears of the Kingdom afterward, I'll have several different reasons;

The switch is underpowered. I'm done buying games for a device that can't keep up with modern game development. I'm not some performance purist either, I'd just like 60 frames at 1080. Zelda still looks good at that res. Also the hardware just kinda sucks. The joycon issues remain unaddressed and and the facebutton mapping should at least be mappable on a system level if they insist on being backwards.

Nintendo has pathetic online gameplay support, and a history now of gutting their digital stores. If I'm going to lose access to my switch purchases in the same time frame that the cartridges give out, I'm not paying. The walled garden they've created as a children's toy company doesn't serve me at 30.

If they'd throw these games on steam or epic with some industry-standard sales on occasion I'd just buy them outright.

When I can't buy it in a reasonable way lol

Simply wanting to save money is a valid enough reason to pirate. The only time you should have any second thoughts is if its a product you REALLY want to see more of or if its made by a smaller group that could really use that money.

Even then though, you can always help without spending money. Easiest way is to spread the word.

You enjoyed that game?

Tell others its a good game worth getting. In many cases, that might help more than buying the game and saying nothing about it.

I find it's very context dependent. In the 3d model/printables, a lot of people who release the pirated content so a 3-4 month embargo to allow the creator a chance to let people get it legally before it's available everywhere.

It's a tautology.

Everyone wants us to subscribe. This a.m. I listened to some guy on the internet rant about HP shutting down his printer remotely b/c he'd bought a subscription, when he bought the printer (didn't read fine print in contract/TOS--that's another rant), to a certain number of pages/month. His credit card number changed, HP didn't get their tithe, so they remotely disabled his printer. Entertainment moguls suck up all the money in that industry, leaving little for artists--to wit, the strikes--and streaming subscriptions are expensive. Cable prices are ridiculous. Corporate greed and having every subscriber subsidize sports channels probably account for that. Everything costs too much, and my budget is small. Original Star Trek and original Doctor Who were broadcast over the air. In exchange for commercials, we got to watch for free. If I could subscribe to iplayer, that would satisfy my needs. Alas, I don't live in UK, and BBC's arrangements with multinational entertainment corps preclude my subscription. So I pay for a good VPN. That's still more than it used to cost to watch. Tropicana OJ used to have a commercial showing people sticking straws right into an orange to suck its juice. I often feel like the orange. Piracy is ethical.

everything and nothing

Piracy is always ethical unless you undoubtedly show proof that it harmed someone.

I give you a hint: it almost never actually does.

There is no value in spending money anymore, you used to get some long term benefits. You bought movies, music and games for example and got to use them however long you want to. Now you pay significantly more under the guise of: "it's only x amount per month" and own nothing.

For me, something like Spotify is far too expensive, considering i could buy an album from the discount bin for like €2 and play it for a full year until i got slightly bored (you still owned and got to use it after that). Spotify is €11 a month, times 12 compared to a single €2 permanent purchase. I usually only bought one or 2 albums per year.

I'm not saying you need to agree with this, but for me it makes absolutely no sense to pay this much especially when i look at my wage not going up and the cost of living having doubled over the past few years.