Please check out a book from a library instead of pirating it; it's much better for the author and your community!
but I also completely get why people don't
It's just SUCH AN ARTIFICIALLY STUPID process, basically actively engineering the technology to work worse than "by default." As in, it's literally more difficult to do this lending thing than to just dump the books on the device and have them all there forever with their essentially infinite storage space.
True, but you could say the same of music streaming platforms, but we're still experimenting with ways to make that work. In both cases, the platform is trying to replicate via policy what was previously an inherent limitation of physical media, and different offerings have made competing choices about what limitations are critical to the business model and which can be let go of.
I personally see a lot more promise in the model where libraries use a policy to enforce a loan period but pay per-checkout royalties instead of trying to recreate wear and tear like Libby/OverDrive does. It makes it more feasible for small libraries to have an "infinite catalog" of ebooks, and authors seem to like it better: https://bsky.app/profile/premeemohamed.com/post/3liafq4gsoc2...
Consider someone who goes to the library, reads books, and then only buys them if they like them.
There is no meaningful moral difference between this and so called "piracy" + buying later.
Please, buy books and support authors. But also, don't pooh-pooh the entire point of the existence of libraries.