I think I agree with you, but democratizing distribution is still orthogonal to the piracy problem. On the one hand, I'm more likely to pay an artist if the only official way I can get their art is to purchase from their website. On the other hand, the first digital download from an artist's website may go right to a torrenter, or youtube. Is self-distribution accompanied by the task of chasing youtube takedowns? Sounds not fun.

A pre-release payment directly addresses the issue of piracy. Piracy just doesn't exist if the content isn't out there.