This sarcastic and snarky view is a bit shortsighted, isn’t it? Piracy worked because it was decentralized distribution. If the government goes after the gatekeepers in the same way they went after piracy they’re not just shutting down distribution - they’re taking the asset too. When someone takes over a coinbase or a binance they’re taking the coins.

Not your keys, not your coins. Your response now will, of course, be “well that’s why you rotate your coins out into cold storage” which is sort of like me saying “you just convert your lira to dollars at the end of the day when you’re done buying food and water.”

It's a good comparison but the value here is orders of magnitude off. A pirate might download a few hundreds of dollars' worth of music and movies. Crypto can be millions of dollars in a transaction. Government goes after the whales, the whole ecosystem dies.

How are you ever going to buy anything physical item ever other than "subscriptions" with crypto, if they ban it? Afaik govts are having tough time with Online Piracy but not Shipping piracy.