> This idea would last in the short-term, and once money dried up, result in a nonexistent market.
Tell that to the music industry. That is not without its fault, but the products on offer are much better than the movie industry has. The market is smaller than it once was, i.e. there's less money flowing through the system, because the consumer isn't being squeezed from every side. The customer is being provided a better product for less money. That's a good thing in my opinion. Having the market be artificially inflated because everyone's got their own small realm no-one else is allowed to touch without paying a hefty licence fee is not a good thing in my opinion.
I don't think "tell that to the music industry", an industry where it is notoriously near-impossible for the people who actually _create_ music to earn a living from their work without signing a deal with a tiny handful of record companies, is the ringing endorsement of "customer getting service for pennies is good actually" that you are portraying it as.
If you can't earn a living by creating music, then don't. If you can't earn a living by creating movies, then don't. If you can't make money writing books about the intricacies of Unix system calls, then don't. You aren't entitled to earn a living just because you create music, movies or writings in our current society. If we're going to have free market capitalism and not have UBI, then that's the way the cookie's gonna crumble. Some industries earn lots and are easy to make a living off of, and other are never going to earn you a penny. Over time, which one's are which start to change. It happened to music. I believe it will happen to movies too, and look forward to that day so the consumer can reap the benefit.
What would stop much larger companies, with more resources, to just keep taking anything good from smaller companies/startup?
This idea would last in the short-term, and once money dried up, result in a nonexistent market.
Piracy sites are competing with other piracy sites and the only differing factor is support.