Most people i know who pirate games are doing it to because it's free. I don't think it has anything to do with steam or any other service.
First you needed to go to a physical store miles away and once you got there the game you wanted may have been sold out. And then there was seldom any sales, except the box of mixed five-year-old games no one wanted by the counter (only $1.99) that you could rummage through and hopefully find a gem. "Darn, they were out of Half-Life[1] but maybe this copy of Strike Squad[2] will be fun while I wait for two weeks for the next batch of Half-Life?" Also note that while a five-year-old game today will barely look dated, back in those days it's the difference between [1] and [3]. Then when you came home to finally install the game, the CD was scratched and the game wouldn't install. And typically the installer didn't notice this until it had reached 95% after 45 minutes of waiting. The StarCraft CDs were notoriously bad in this respect and you needed to treat them like delicate flower petals. "Eh, my StarCraft CD no longer works, can I borrow yours? NOO!"
So for those of us, who pirated StarCraft after the third authentic CD had broken down, Steam was a godsend.
[1] https://www.mobygames.com/game/155/half-life/screenshots/ [2] https://www.mobygames.com/game/9899/strike-squad/screenshots... [3] https://www.mobygames.com/game/1068/doom/screenshots/
I like that if a patch comes out which fixes bugs and adds features, I'm guaranteed that it works immediately. I don't have to wait for a new version of the crack to come out that cracks the new version.
I like that multiplayer always works.
I like that I can access the Steam Workshop.
I like never having to worry if the latest crack is going to include malware.
None of that is guaranteed if I pirate the game.
As a side note, I just discovered that GameCopyWorld not only still exists, it's still using the same style as it did 20 years ago.