Why did you go back to pirating, instead of paying for albums? Could it be that you were only willing to give a pittance to begin with?

In the Spotify payment model, some artists make non-trivial amounts of money, and most make effectively no money. The listener doesn't choose which artists fall into which category.

I prefer to choose. If some artists that I listen to will be paid out of my $10/month contribution, I'd rather control that distribution of my $10 directly.

Spotify and the like generate pennies for artists because the record compnies part own it and have price fixed it to hell and back. The only significant profit comes from touring and merch sales. As a starving artist, pirate my shit, see my show. Nobody cares about plays except for getting distribution deals.

Why don't your support big artists as well?

I don't listen to them that much, and they don't need my support.