I find he’s dramatizing the dichotomy, but I always found this arranged argument lacking.

Imagine you have a budding farmhand, a hard-working local, in mind when you go to the local farmers’ market to “support local farms”. But that’s wrong, isn’t it? Because the farm owner pays that hand a static salary. Their exact success or revenue off one extra bag of apples isn’t going into that hand’s pocket.

But it’s also related; that farmhand has better job stability, more chance of a bonus, less pressure to advertise well, if the farm is making a comfortable salary.

Now, the one part I’ll admit is this logic doesn’t work as well in corporate atmospheres; where CEOs fire as many people as possible, reward no one for good performance, and would rather fudge numbers than sell a good product.

But I’d also wager a lot of commenters shortcutting their logic to “company bad, pirate games” aren’t always taking a critical investigative eye to how companies treat their people. After all, “I get free game” is a strong motivator to believe a certain way.