Earlier quoted context omitted.
Devils Advocate: The alternative of "not consuming" digital products is less valuable to creators than "consuming for free." Allow me to reference a very famous Bill Gates quote on Chinese piracy of software: "And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." There are more ways to monetize…
I don't know. I think there is a difference between applications and platforms like Adobe Software and Windows which often get pirated but at times hugely cost prohibitive to new entrants (e.g. students, young people) vs pirating movies/shows. I'm persistently left unconvinced by moral arguments on show/movie piracy, especially in an age where there's no shortage of new content being created, be it on YouTube, your l…
My point is strictly relating to the business end result of the following three alternatives:
1) DO pay for and DO consume digital product.
2) NOT pay for but DO consume digital product.
3) NOT pay for and NOT consume digital product.
Only alternatives #1 and #2 provides a way to monetize the consumer, either via direct monetization of the product (ie pay-per-view) or indirect monetization (ie merchandizing, willingness to pay for new versions of the product in the future, etc), or by leveraging that consumer as a marketing agent to bring in additional consumers (ie that consumer's best friend ended up being monetizable when previously they would have never heard of your media property).
Because there is no expense to the business when a digital product is pirated, then intelligent business management would always prefer option 2 to option 3. That said, business management cannot publicly endorse this preference without the threat of converting #1 consumers into #2 consumers (which are still more valuable than #3 but arguably less than #1).