Don’t know too much about the Canadian market but isn’t the convenience of not doing something illegal and it being easily accessible worth paying for. That’s why streaming service’s completely beat out piracy
I live near an ex-urb/suburb of about 20,000 people. There's about 5 Tim Hortons franchises, and I think about 7 cannabis retailers at last count. I strolled into one the other day, a saturday afternoon, and it was a ghost town. Not a person in sight. At least the Tim Hortons have a line-up of addicts at the drive-thru.
I suspect anybody who is serious about smoking the stuff either grows their own (you're permitted up to 4 plants, which is a lot really) or "has a guy."
I live rural, and I have neighbours on one side open-air growing a bunch of plants. Eagerly awaiting first frost, because right now it smells like a college dorm room outside.
Are you sure about that?
Streaming is incredibly fragmented + the geolocation based limitations (certain shows are available in X country but not in Y, subtitles and dubbing varies a lot to) are increasingly prominent. Piracy will always triumph because of the ease of access and getting what you want in the format you want.
What does "harder" mean? Just because what.cd doesn't exist anymore there are still countless trackers and servers out there. I can pretty much download anything I want week 1. There are more music out there that we could listen in our entire lives.
Of course someone always comes up with the question like "what about the tanzanian panflute world music band I've heard in Quito in 1982, where can I find their CD"
but spotify is pretty good, doesn't require a lot of storage, and works on everything to include my phone and my linux desktop. my mom, my kid, and most people i know are able to use it, and "it just works". and spotify has few competitors.
tv and movie streaming, however, is fractured and miserable. there was a minute where a single netflix made it better, but for the month cost of 2 streaming services I could get sickbeard and NZDB and watch whatever i want. then there is the "what service is $show on?" game, which you don't have to worry about with streaming.
and then there is 'owning' -- if you keep your pirated content you have it. meanwhile netflix or hulu can lose the rights and you don't get to see that show again.
ime this is only true for the unwashed masses.
piracy has a trove of benefits, but you gotta know your way around the sharp edges.