I will happily buy anything that I can own. I pirate as a last resort, and often pay for streaming services for anything I pirate to ensure that artists get their money. Ownership and quality are important though. For example, I pay for 4k on netflix. I am lucky to get 720p even though I have a 400mbs internet connection. So I torrent to get the quality that I already paid for. I also pay Tidal every month for music, but it wont work half the time where there is no signal or where my connection isnt perfect, so I keep a local copy of everything as well.

I am in no way averse to paying for something even if it isnt physical so long as I get value from it. I’m averse to being lied to about what I am paying for and not recieving what I paid for. Furthermore, if I pay to own something, it is an absolute must that I have a physical copy that cannot be tampered with or disabled by an external entity. Anything else is not ownership. If a company says own this through our servers, I consider that false marketing and a direct lie to scam me.

In the EU they must assume you have opted out until you explicitly opt in. blocking the popuip by law, must be treated as opting out. or to be more specific, its aconsent thing. they must assume they do not have consent until you explicitly give it.if this popup is in the EU, its a violation to my knowledge as it is forcing the user to change theirbrowsers settings or opt into something not necessary.

Not FOSS, but have you considered payment rings? I use Mclear ringpay. its effectiverly a prepaid debit card, which is stored inside a ring using contactless.

No battery, no recharging, no data.

thats how I’m solving the issue