You’re paying for your privacy. Also, a copy of a game or a movie is not a service.

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VPN isn’t specifically for pirating, personally I could even torrent without it, no one would give a crap; my situation aside, you can DDL without a VPN and you’d still be in the clear

You can ask the same thing at the internet level. Why are people paying for internet service when they could go to the public library and get free Wi-Fi.

Internet service VPNs are foundational networking. You need them to do anything else.

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A “free” VPN is worse than no VPN. They have to pay for the service somehow, and you’re not paying, so they are making money off you somehow.

For me it’s more of a convenience issue. If there was a legit site with a subscription for a few bucks a month that had every TV show and movie on it that I could watch in high resolution without ads and other bullshit going on then I’d probably just do that. In fact I basically do that with music already with Spotify. Netflix looked like it might have been going that way back the day but then it all went sideways.

But yeah basically I just don’t want to have to subscribe to like 8 different services or have to keep switching around to find the show I want so piracy & a couple of bucks a month for a VPN is the better service IMO.

I have a VPN that I pay less than 100 a year for. Here’s some examples of what I use it for:

• Free movies. Each of those movies would be at least $5 to rent and more to buy. If I could even find them.
• Pirating TV shows for streaming services I don’t have. For a long while, almost everything was on Netflix, so I didn’t need to pirate shows. Now with everyone making their own streaming service, it’d cost me $50+ a month just to get access to all the different shows I want to watch. I have Netflix, and Amazon Prime, and I have access to HBO and Disney. But I don’t have: CBS All Access, Apple TV, etc etc. There are a ton of platforms where there’s only 1 or 2 shows I want to watch. I can pirate them instead.
• Pirating TV shows for streaming services I do have. There are streaming services I have that my friends and family can’t access, especially because of Netflix’s new location restrictions. So often I’m subscribed to torrent RSS feeds for shows to put on Plex for my friends, even though I’ll end up watching them through the actual streaming service.
• Breaking through geo-restrictions on streaming sites. I’m a pro wrestling fan, but I don’t have cable. In the US it’s very hard to watch AEW without cable, because they have an exclusive deal with Warner Brothers. Eventually they might go on HBO Max, but in the mean time the only way to stream them is over Fite.TV, which is restricted to outside the US. I can VPN to England, then pay $9 for all the AEW weekly shows, with no commercials. I can also access a bunch of wrestling pay per views for half the price as in the US.
• Pirating audiobooks. Often the only place to get an audiobook is Audible. I don’t want to pay a subscription, the books are expensive, and I don’t want to deal with DRM. Instead I can just download them.
• Pirating retro game ROMs. I have a raspberry pi with RetroPie on it, a handheld abernic retro console, and a ROM cartridge for my N64. Instead of having to buy the same retro games over and over for new consoles, I can just download the ROMs and use them on very cheap retro consoles. Many of the games I wouldn’t be able to buy at all, outside a flea market for 80 bucks

Putting aside morality, from a money-in -> money-out perspective you’ll pay much less for a VPN than you would buying your media legit, and it’s much safer to have one enabled if you’re using public swarms. You’re not paying to pirate as much as you’re paying to not be harassed by copyright trolls. If you can make it work with a free VPN, more power to you.

VPNs also have other non-piracy uses, so people might already have one purchased anyway - this is another use for it.

VPN usage isn’t solely for pirating.

But, the use of one for pirating is just to keep the hassles down. It isn’t necessary to pirate in general.

My VPN comes out to about $2/month (got a promotional offer). What other service, exactly, can I buy for 2 dollars?

I pay $15/month for a seedbox because I prefer the overall experience compared to Netflix, etc. My parents have given me their login details for the services they subscribe to, and every so often, I check them out, but end up going back to my seedbox + Plex setup. Some of the reasons I prefer my piracy-based setup:

• I often set up a queue/playlist of shows, not necessarily all from the same series. As far as I’m aware, the streaming services let you do that.

• My shows never pause to ask me if I’m still watching.

• I can access an unlimited library of content without switching apps.

• Content won’t become unavailable if I try to access it from a different country or totally disappear when a contract expires.

• Some episodes of some shows have been edited/censored, or removed completely, from whatever streaming service hosts it, but those episodes are available in their original form via torrents.

Nobody offers the service that I can offer myself. Not even close.

I pay for a VPN and don’t use it for piracy.
I pay for Usenet and I use it for piracy.
Money has never really been a consideration as to whether I pirate or not.
If you want to know why I pirate stuff you can thank Mediacom, after becoming nearly homicidal talking to their “tech support” line for 2 years (I was locked in a 2 year contract), I decided to never pay directly for media again.
12 years and counting

Free VPN == you are the product.