Piracy gives zero money to the creators.

None of them are paying the cost to create the content for movies and TV, except for their own original shows. I also have no problem paying a company to watch their original content…that’s completely fair. I also have no problem paying toward the “cost of creating content” as you say.

I have a problem with how media is carved up to make sure you have to use multiple services and maximize profit. I have a problem with the ads they want to force me to watch…and charge me to watch them. I have a problem with their ever increasing prices for worse and worse catalogs. I have a problem with, despite paying for the right to watch it, they still decide how and when I can watch.

None of those things are the “cost” of creating content.

Alfred Hitchcock's movies aren't missing from Netflix because Netflix couldn't afford to pay for their production.

> The black market is only more competitive because it doesn’t bear the costs of actually creating the content.

That only explains why the price is lower, not why the experience is better.

The non-black market produces an intentionally inferior product so they can maximize their rent-seeking behaviors.

Creating the content is a sunk cost.

That said, the evidence on content creation and financial incentive is quite blurry - there's some relationship but there are also lots of people who create lots of things without tremendous financial incentive. And the genesis of copyright wasn't to protect authors, but publishers who had significant costs for producing first editions compared to those who might just copy a first edition.

Kinda? I'm not actually sure what profit is being made if I'm just downloading from qbitorrent and never visiting a site seeing ads.

But also, I still will buy movies and pay for streaming services and pirate the shows on them. Why? Because the pirating experience is just better. It is also just easier to download a torrent than it is to rip a blueray. I don't really feel bad about this because I'm paying for the content like anyone else, I'm just getting a better viewing experience. Maybe only thing being hurt is the watch metrics on the streaming platform. But if they aren't considering the metrics from piracy too then they're being idiotic.