As in this argument.
Yes, that was my point.
if you would have a legal streaming platform that is free with all the same content then everyone would use that, no?
Are you suggesting a case in which it's funded by some billionaire who does not need to charge money in order to cover the cost of hosting? Because if not, we're back in the "commercial use" territory that I already covered.
If it's purely hypothetical in order to ask if people prefer free things, then sure, of course people prefer free. But people prefer convenient even more, as streaming shows.
Half the reason piracy took off in the days of Limewire and Napster is because the RIAA actually made agreements with the big music publishers not to sell their music on digital services, in order to prop up CD sales. When iTunes came along, it instantly ate up the vast majority of Limewire/Frostwire/IRC traffic for music.