There are many studies that show piracy does not hurt creators. This was often the complaint back in the Napster era, by the movie industry, etc...I hear those are still kicking.
I have real statistics based on my two previous releases.
And not stupid articles from the left Internet (sorry for the rudeness).
Piracy helps lower sales to zero.
Yes, there is a certain positive effect, in the form of a couple of subscriptions to patreon, but all this overrides the negative effect in the form of dozens of unsold copies.
It is also important to understand that 3DX is not the same as a movie, where people can recoup their costs even before the release through advertising of other products. Where movies are first shown in cinemas, then on disks, and then on streaming services.
I just have a hundred images for $ 10 that I've been working on for a few months, and if the sales don't pay for the time spent, it's pointless to continue.
I don't have any other monetization models.
I also used to think that piracy helps, until I became a vendor myself.
This topic has 27K views at the time of writing the comment. How many of them do you think signed up for patreon? Zero. Yes, indeed, a great help from piracy.