The good in online piracy

Most people will tell you, when asked, that pirating things online, like games or movies, is bad, and you shouldn't do it. You should, instead, pay for everything you want to get, this way supporting the creators, because that's the right thing to do.

However, while I completely agree with the last part of what I just said above, "helping the creators", I also believe that in a lot of situations, piracy can be a good thing.

Allow me to start talking about this by asking you a simple question - do you know why most adolescents or kids spend more time pirating games or movies than adults?

It's because they have a lot of time at their disposal, and they can afford wasting it. Kids can spend 8 hours waiting for a game to download from a website because they don't really have anything else to do with their time. The only thing they need to care about is school. Their parents pay for anything else.

They can't always go to their mother of father and ask for $60 so they can buy a game, so they simply download it from whatever website they can. They do the same with movies.

However, when they grow up, their priorities change - sure, they will still play a lot of games, but now, they have a lot less time at their disposal to wait God knows how many hours for a game to download. If they want to play GTA V for example, that's almost 60 GB, so they'll have to wait a while, and we're only counting the downloading process - they still have to install everything and then crack the game.

They can't do that - they have a job to go to, they have responsibilities, and even letting their computer run without them being there means they'll have to spend a lot of money on electricity bills. So what do they do instead? They pay for the game.

Sure, $60 for a game is a lot, but it all depends on how much you value your free time and your entertainment. Some people spend thousands of dollars on things they barely use. Spending $60 on a game you'll spend hours and hours playing, to relax and have fun, it's a worth investment, at least for me.

That's usually how things are - kids have time, but no money, so they can afford to use torrents to download games illegally, while adults have a lot less time at their disposal, but they have money, so they can just buy the game they want.

Now here's another thing - pirating things online and trying all kind of products for free, allows you to better understand what you like and what you don't, this way having a better idea of what you'll be spending your money on once you get a job.

From what I personally know, this is the strategy Microsoft used with their operating system - they allowed, and still allow people to illegally use their system, because they know that most people who do that are either kids or just random people who don't want to spend $100 on a product. Those people will get their OS for free, will spend time using it, getting accustomed to it and getting to like that particular Windows version.

Then the same people will buy their operating system once they have more money and less time, because they want a product that just works and is supported by Microsoft, and don't care about saving $100 while wasting a lot of time searching for the right OS on all kind of websites, crack it, make sure it has enough updates to keep their pc safe, etc.

Time is an important resource, and people will be willing to spend money to have more time to do the things they need or want to do.

Then there's passion - if you truly love video games, or movies, or whatever you watch/play/read, then you will spend money on certain products, even tho you can pirate them, just because you want to support the creators.

In my case, I spent a lot of money on games, and I still do whenever I have the chance. One particular example is buying all the The Witcher games, even tho I could've downloaded them illegally, simply because I want to support the developers. I love what they do and I want them to spend more time doing it - that's why I'll probably buy their next game too, Cyberpunk 2077, the moment it comes out.

I also have a long list of games I pirated when I was younger that I want to buy, simply because I like the developers and I want to support them so they can create even more games. Same thing applies to movies.

So, the conclusion - is piracy bad?

I guess the answer is something you'd expect - it depends.

If you illegally download something, you're harming whoever created that thing. They spent money, time and resources creating that product, and instead of buying it and supporting them, you're getting the product without paying for it, and the creators lose money because of that.

However, in a lot of situations, piracy can be a good thing - it allows young people who don't have money to try certain products and then buy them when they will be financially stable and will value their time more than anything, it allows passionate people to play certain games or watch certain movies, and then pay for them just to support the developers and it's an easy way of making sure a lot of people get to see what you create.