If enough grannies decide to pirate goods (edit), the effect is the same
I question whether this is a thing that significantly exists in the real world, especially given a number of studies [1] that show "pirates" purchase significantly more media (numbers ranging from 30% to 300%) than non-"pirates". If you have numbers on "losses" that don't come from sources that invent numbers out of whole cloth [2], I'd love to see them.
You can't simply treat an unauthorized copy as a lost sale [3]. And for the sake of pete, stop calling it "theft", or at the very least stop making flawed analogies to physical goods.
[1]: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/telecoms-...
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120206/04501417667/ny-ti...
Do note that the same people who were pirating games/movies i Decades ago are now making them or buying them.
Not to mention that There's more content to consume today - for free, than there is to buy.
Problem is distributed theft is a new thing for us as people, and it seems to be very hard for us to stop or deal with.