[mikeash]

I doubt there's a fixed entertainment budget. I could see a fixed maximum, but past a certain threshold of being able to obtain things for free, people will spend less.

Even if it was a completely fixed budget, "entertainment" is a diverse category. Movies aren't just competing with other movies, or even just with TV and books and music, but also with things like cake and vodka. Even if the pie is fixed, is it unreasonable for a movie company to try to take some of vodka's pie?

The idea that piracy causes zero lost sales as is ridiculous as the idea that every act of piracy is a lost sale. At best you could make the argument that piracy is a net zero (or gain) because the advertising aspects of piracy match (or outweigh) the losses. But to just declare that piracy does nothing at all is crazy. It may be small, it may be negligible, but it's not zero unless your product is so unpopular that nobody was going to buy it anyway.

[ddingus]

Those dollars do vary, and yes a movie company will absolutely compete with vodka and cake.

But there aren't the billions of dollars out there claimed as losses.

And yes, fixed maximum, though there are a lot of options, so people do hit that maximum fairly often.

A quick look through the majority of my peers shows this. They make trade-offs each month. The ones who are better off can flex their entertainment budget considerably. Those who are not, center in on a fairly modest amount, and when it's spent, it's spent. They do other things.

I agree with you about it being equally wrong. It's not zero lost sales, and it's not all lost sales.

However, one must also factor in the network effects of sharing. Mindshare is worth something, and those who have it sell more, and getting it happens through sharing and piracy as much as it does other efforts.

And the opportunity to sell continues to exist despite the piracy too. A few are out there working on that premise.