Earlier quoted context omitted.
The down voting you’re getting is emblematic of the entitlement mentality among tech folks when it comes to content. There is no right to consume entertainment someone else produced for free. If you don’t like the terms on which they’re selling the fruits of their labor, don’t buy it.
Completely playing devil's advocate here, but why should the companies feel entitled to money? If someone is going to go out of their way to pirate something, they're not spending money on it any anyway. So the company is spending their own money and time coming up with ways to prevent people from accessing their content which the other person wouldn't have paid for in the first place, then using that to show how muc…
That analysis maybe works in the context of an individual piece of content from a single company, but it is a lot more shaky when applied to multiple pieces of content from multiple companies.
For instance, suppose someone wants to watch a movie tonight. Their first choice is not yet available on any streaming platform they subscribe to, nor is it available on any of the rental platforms they have reasonable access to. It's only available for purchase at $25.
If they cannot pirate it they aren't likely to cancel their movie night. They are likely to move on to their second or third choice that is available on one of their streaming services or is rentable.
If they pirate their first choice, then the company that provides that movie loses nothing because, as you note, they were not going to get the money anyway. The company providing their second choice however does lose out on the sale they would have made if there was no piracy.
(Well, actually, the company that makes their first choice loses nothing that night. If they could not have pirated it, they probably would not have given up on watching it. They would more likely have postponed it to a later movie night after it does become available for rental or streaming).