I believe that the disconnection between getting a product and paying for a product is one of the major underlying causes of piracy. For example, I can watch a TV show (over the airwaves) for free. But the show is NOT free, a group of advertizers paid for the show, and provide it for me to watch free in order to get me to watch their commercials and buy their product. The result is generations of people used to getting "free" entertainment. From their viewpoint (and I am <not> endorsing it, just describing it.), they have developed a philosophical problem. Why pay for things they are used to getting for free? To make it worse, they have the technical capabilites to get it free, even when it was only designed for a pay model. Hence piracy.
"Free" has been limited to "broadcast" technologies, but those cover most mass-produced entertainments (books being the glaring exception. I have always wondered why books and other print media always charged something for their product, rather than using the advertising subsidy model, even when advertising paid for the vast majority of their costs.
I guess it has to do with the use of a physical wrapper, versus the invisible airwaves.)
This is the point of the "free" model. Find some other economic model to pay for the content and give it away for free (subsidy, advertising, et.al.), rather that fighting the generations of canalization for getting entertainment "free".
(This does not include "event entertainment" (concerts, sporting events, theaters, ect.). There has been a steady market for these entertainments (for a fee) despite "free" entertainment. )