Hm. I'm sure it can. However, in my line of work, pirated software leads to furtherance of proprietary and unexportable/hard-to-export file formats that further

Hm. I'm sure it can. However, in my line of work, pirated software leads to furtherance of proprietary and unexportable/hard-to-export file formats that further push others to piracy. Switching to FLOSS systems and open data formats sidesteps this whole issue. With open formats, open specs, and FLOSS implementations means that data is now portable and easier to write translators for. And data is not a roach-motel model, where proprietary software uses that model as a form of lock-in. Tl;dr. Starting off makes sense to pirate. Longterm, FLOSS makes more sense for your data and content. (And, software piracy online feels like the equivalent of jaywalking in terms of "criminality". But this is just a personal feel.)