the money I’d pay to Netflix or Spotify won’t actually go to the artists who worked on the stuff
Not enough of the money goes to the artist, but money does go to the artists. If you’re not sure, ask literally any artist who has their content featured on netflix, or any of the other platforms.
Money also goes to the marketing team, and software developers, and internationalization teams, and all the other people in the chain who actually do have a purpose and make that artist’s content more available to the world than it otherwise would be.
But they’re always going to take more than they should, that’s just called inefficiency, and is where competition can happen. But if it’s not generating enough income, the content simply won’t happen.
Which is honestly fine with me, lord knows we have too much garbage on these platforms.
Most imortantly: I don’t want to shame anyone for pay/not paying, as I usually don’t know their financial situtation.
Totally agree. I felt I was very clear that I myself pirated when I couldn’t afford to pay, which is consistent with the belief that you should pay what you can afford.