I'd argue that pirating apps is actually the wrong direction for this, not for any kind of ethical objection, but since it's kind of a concession that these app

I'd argue that pirating apps is actually the wrong direction for this, not for any kind of ethical objection, but since it's kind of a concession that these applications can't be replicated in a non-awful pricing model. I think the better way is honestly just to make something competitive, preferably FOSS, and I actually do think we're getting there. Blender, for example, is an extremely decent animation tool nowadays, Krita is a very good digital art program, OpenToonz/Tahoma2D are pretty ok 2D animation programs, Godot is a decent-enough game engine, etc. Yeah there are still gaps and I'm not claiming everything has parity with everything with awful pricing models, but I think we're getting there, and I think that's a more sustainable model than piracy.