Generally it’s agreed the best way to stop piracy is by offering a more convenient alternative. I generally for example don’t pirate video games available on Steam. With streaming services being so disjoint and expensive now I’ve gone back to pirating, at least with cable you can bundle channels.
I think a much better comparison than Steam would be Spotify.
I use Plex for all my movies and TV shows for the same reasons you mentioned. All my stuff can be in one place instead of having to pay for Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, Disney+, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, and whatever other fucking shit is out there.
Plex also supports music libraries, but I don’t use that feature. Why? Because Spotify has literally 99.9% of all the music I want to listen to, and aside from maybe like Garth Brooks, the other 0.1% is on Youtube. Spotify did it right by just having a basic service that you can pay for and get everything you want. If I had to subscribe to Spotify, Tidal, Napster (Still a thing I guess?), and 4 other services just to access all the music I listen to, I’d go back to piracy.
With Spotify slowly starting to reach a limit in subscribers, it’s unfortunately only a matter of time until they start pulling what Netflix is doing and finding new ways to get money from customers.
Spotify is already making people pay for sound quality that’s akin to a TDK C90
Audiophiles out here in denial of the fact that 99% of music is played via Bluetooth.
I don’t care if my streamed music isn’t the absolute best quality when I’m listening on AirPods or in my car.
