I still went to concerts on occasion, but the smaller the better. And the only time I'd buy new CDs was in the lobby after the show. My cash went directly into the artist's hand, that was the only way I could see supporting the art form. If I listened to anything casually, it was radio, and I got so annoyed with top-40 and robo-rock stations that I installed a better antenna on my roof so I could pick up the little high-school LPFM station a few towns over, where real deejays still existed.
(They are still excellent, by the way. A fresh batch of optimism every semester, passion for the music, pride in the technical aspects of the broadcast. I've learned to accept REM being referred to as "oldies".)
After over a decade of this, Spotify finally made sense. It seemed like things had settled down enough, the industry had made it easy to go legit. I paid my money, got my music, I knew at least some tiny fraction of that was theoretically going to the artists (though the more I learn about this, the more disgusted I become), life was good. I could enjoy music again.
Then Spotify had its Joe Rogan moment, and I went back to feeling dirty about everything.
There's a parallel story about movies and TV, though I was never much into either. Never signed up for Netflix even in its golden era, but I can see plain as day that that era is dead and buried.
Will I pirate again? Likely not; it's simply easier to do without. I have a big shelf of dead-tree books that I've been meaning to read, and I'm finally starting to get through them. They're DRM-free, low-power, and the display contrast ratio is second-to-none.