Its a nice little bit of common wisdom that "free is always better," but its not actually true- if it were, Netflix and Spotify and their ilk would never have gotten off the ground, since there's not a thing they're selling that can't be pirated (and no realistic chance of punishment for piracy.) We're not homo economicus.
The main reasons Netflix, Spotify and their ilk exist are a) piracy is still not user-friendly enough for everyone, and b) people vastly overestimate the risk of getting caught for piracy. Both of these are largely due to the incessant efforts of copyright holders exerting their legal rights. We are, in the large, homo economicus.
