> Is that really happening at any meaningful scale?

Anecdotally: oh yes. I don’t know anybody who pays, although that may say more about the populations I work with and hang out with.

I hear there’s plenty of headroom for the direct economics to work, if you’re reselling for less than the ~EUR100/month range the commercial providers charge [1]. Gross median income in Spain is on the order of EUR27000 annually, for reference [2]—so I’m not sure how many of the pirate viewers would be able to afford the legit product if the pirate channels dried up.

I also hear [0] there’s a robust side trade in exploiting pirate viewers’ machines though malware-style techniques while they’re there and feeling enticed to click yes to things…

[0] https://www.webroot.com/blog/2021/05/12/we-explored-the-dang...

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/LaLiga/comments/1fksf3i/how_much_do...

[2] https://www.ine.es/dyngs/INEbase/en/operacion.htm?c=Estadist...