Do you pirate? And do you justify pirating? i.e., what is your piracy philosophy?
Well, my friend, he's kinda poor he can't afford some books and some streaming services, so he pirates. He pirate books, audiobook and videos and other stuff. Sometimes he buys books he likes a lot out of loyalty to the author (yeah, I don't understand it either), he likes to read physical books, but yeah, if he hates the author or just wants to skim through it, he will download the book.
He usually doesn't like to pirate from small companies or professors who are trying to make a living by selling books, but from millionaires & plenty of mega corps which already have loads of money, he feels like it's the right move to pirate
Also, have you ever noticed that you have felt that the value of a product has decreased just because you didn't pay for it, thus you are less interested to read it? i.e., had you paid for the book, you would have more likely read that book.
He says he will buy stuff when his time is more valuable than money, let's all hope that day is soon.
Specifically for books I pirate because I get a better product this way. I prefer reading on my phone and downloading an epub means I can open it in any app I want, add chapters and share it with whoever I want. If I could easily pay for a book and get the same experience without any drm or online account bullshit I would probably do it.
Physical books are also ok but buying anything not in my language means possibly waiting forever for it to arrive and paying more for transit costs. I may still do it if I really want to support the author but I'd rather have a way to pay them directly tbh.
That's a good question, I'm not sure. I just make sure the file has the correct extension and it's opened with the correct app. I've never had an issue on android but I mostly download from the same site which seems to have good files (and always with adblock).