What does this statement mean then? Why would you pirate something if you had no interest in it? If it’s interesting enough to download, it must have been worth something to you.
Sure. But it doesn’t mean it’s worth the asking price to me. Because I can’t negotiate on that price, my interest is effectively worth nothing to the company.
Let’s pretend for a minute that piracy wasn’t an option. In that scenario, I simply wouldn’t watch it. Therefore, there’s no potential that the company will get money from me, and there’s no opportunity for them to get money. Because there’s no opportunity, there’s no opportunity cost for the company to me pirating the content.
That’s what people are talking about when they talk about the company losing money to piracy. They’re talking about the unrealized potential income of people that would have paid for the content, but didn’t because they pirated it instead. The counterpoint to that is that there’s no way I’m going to pay for it. Therefore, there’s no unrealized potential income. They’re not out of anything by me pirating their company.