But i feel "punish" is the wrong lens to look at this. It's hard for the individual to punish a corporation. Ultimately the goal is to maximize your own purchase so the best way to achieve that is to find a better product. Then that merchant grows based on their ability to serve the customer. In my experience, most companies tend to be punished not by people or competition, but by their own folly.
And if there really is no merchant serving your product for your price, that's a much larger discussion to have.
You can't punish them for something they haven't done, by pirating before they do it. There will be no correlation, so no feedback mechanism, in that scenario. What do you see as the signal they should pick up on? How will they differentiate it from "they pirate no matter what we do"? These are genuine questions.
