When you buy a boat or a Rolex, you own a boat or a Rolex. Now you can buy all Star Citizen's ship you will own nothing, if tomorrow they decide to close their servers you are pretty much screwed.
People get value from things that aren't tangible. Many of the most valuable things aren't tangible.
For a movie you clearly know what you get into.
Some guys spend $100k to go motor racing for a season in single-make cars. At the end of it, they don't own anything but any trophies they might have picked up.
If people want to spend money on digital goods, putting up walls to stop or make it harder is unlikely to be successful unless you outright ban it with heavy punishment for use.
That hasn't worked so well for other items in a similar category, and digital goods are completely victimless.
The article and others in the thread have given arguments that digital goods are not victimless. Most societies acknowledge that gambling is harmful; digital gambling with fake money or with time spent in-game is presumably harmful as well.