In what world is everyone able or willing to pirate? I think your ad-absurdum is just absurd here.
This was the claim. I said what I said to point out that if everyone acted on this belief for a feature film, there would be a thousand people who ultimately don't get compensated for their work.
You are right: not everyone is able or willing to pirate. Piracy is only able to exist because of these people who pay for art. That's definitely true, and definitely different than the claim that no one is being deprived of anything.
Also, "the pirate was never going to pay" is a far more imaginary thing here; it's an unproven claim (especially since it's often paired with "pirates would pay if it was cheaper/more convenient to access).
Regardless, it strikes me as a particularly arrogant kind of entitlement for you to violate someone's terms to enjoy their thing while telling them you think it's worthless.
I dunno man. If you're gonna benefit from the hard work of others without compensating them, so be it. It's the pretension that you're doing something other than that, for motives other than pure self-interest, which really bothers me.
What motives have I claimed?
Am I wrong?
The only way people try to make this work logically is to talk about how a digital good has a nominal real cost - but that's a very different argument.
So once again, they can't lose imaginary income.
If they are, then you have an argument. If they aren't, then whatever that price is covering other than nominal real costs is being stolen in this case as well.