Agreed 100%. Original argument about taking something of value, if somone takes the source code, rebrands the original and re-releases the content for money, that would be stealing.

What are these people called? Not pirates for sure, Oh right they're called some big "media creator company"

I’ll never lose sleep over it and don’t care for the whales but I do directly donate $15 a month, sometimes individually but often times to 2 or 3 individuals. The only service I pay for otherwise is realdebrid. I started donating as I got to a comfortable place in life and am happy to contribute that subscription plus my $15 a month donation to the project, creator, artist w/e. I pick based on the content our household is consuming or projects I want to support.

At the end of the day I don’t think anyone needs to justify anything. Even if pirating is considered to be immoral, which I’m not arguing, it would still be the least immoral practice in the process compared to all the shit that takes place with large commercially developed content.

If things ever got stupid I’d just play crossword and do puzzles, I’m not so attached to electronic media that I’d pay over $50 a month for the entertainment.