I don't pirate music anymore for the same reason. However, I also don't listen to music as I used to. I usually use Spotify to listen to what I already know, not so much to find new stuff. Before, I used to dive in depth into an artist/band, starting from their greatest hits. Once I got the band vocabulary, I'd download the albums chronologically and listened to every track, sometimes more than once until I got familiar with it. Now I don't do it with as much scrutiny, which is interesting since Spotify has all albums very well organized and even the discovery playlist. It would be much easier and better.

Is IKEA effect at play? Without Spotify, I would only start another artist when I finished the current one. So, with Spotify it becomes an information management problem due to the large amount of albums available at a click. Or it could just be that my life has changed and I don't have a time slot dedicated to music anymore.