> Why? Because the introduction of the iTunes store in 2003 made buying music even more convenient than illegally downloading it. Convenient beat out free. tld

> Why? Because the introduction of the iTunes store in 2003 made buying music even more convenient than illegally downloading it. Convenient beat out free. tldr; Convenient does not beat free. A convenient system with fees and with no propaganda against it whose use carries no risk of ruining one's life/finances/reputation beats a gratis system with widespread propaganda against it whose use, development, and distribution carries a risk to everyone's life/finances/reputation. * you can get sued into oblivion for even using the free option. This is such a danger that Bram Cohen, original author of Bittorrent, has stated publicly he decided from the outset never to download content over it so that nobody could ever impeded his current or future work with threats of lawsuits over copyright infringement. (And the current debacle with Project Gutenberg shows how big a danger those lawsuits can be.) * you can get jail time for publishing the locations of the free options * you can be threatened with lawsuit and/or criminal penalties for developing an application like Popcorn Time that makes the free options discoverable and user-friendly * you will eventually get your domain name suspended if you ignore all the risks above and serve up an app/site for the free option * even projects like Gutenberg and IMSLP which serve up content exclusively that is no longer under copyright have to spend considerable resources consulting with lawyers to make sure parties who would rather sell what they offer cannot simply strongarm them or sue them out of existence Take all those risks into account, plus the fact that RIAA and Hollywood have enormous resources to throw against the free option. It is amazing that the free options have existed at all, much less in the user-friendly and convenient form of something like Popcorn Time.