Pirating by being better at the instrument. Love it.
I’ve been able to play by ear for years but it’s not effortless, it’s much easier to see a chord progression first at least.
So I’m still stuck in the Tab world a bit, except I look up chords to songs then play around with the chords until I have something cool, but that is the beauty of playing finger style, it can sound cool in different ways depending on the strings you play