Additionally: word of mouth can turn into sales down the line, too, if the pirate liked the game and talks about it.

At worst, the developer isn't negatively impacted (by people pirating a game they couldn't afford / had no intention of buying), at best it leads to more sales.

I don't see the problem.

And I know that someone reading this will be foaming at their mouth, excited to say "But what if everyone did this? Then developers/studios/... wouldn't make any money and stop producing games/movies/...!", so I have to preemptively add the following:

• obviously this is not the case. Pirates have existed for decades.
• pirates pirate because the cost is either too high for them to afford, or higher than what they value the game/... at. If you consider yourself a "rational capitalist" (which, let's be real, is what most of the anti-piracy-crowd sees themselves at) then consider this as the market working as intended: demand simply isn't high enough at the price they're selling at
• and once more, just to make sure this comes across, pirating a digital product incurrs zero (0) loss on the side of the developer/studio. No, you can not count "virtual" losses from what they could have sold if the pirates ever had the intention of buying, or pirating didn't exist (because, y'know, it does).

Edit: btw I say this as someone who has never pirated a game except for Minecraft when I was, like, 10. I love playing (esp. Indie) games and am happy to pay for them. I just want people to leave folks alone who can't.