Ahh that brought back memories XD
I pirated a lot back in the day as well. I didn't end up buying/subscribing to Photoshop as I actually hate subscription models for software but it did get and keep me going in digital art. Similarly people I know pirated various expensive things they wanted to use, then grew up and either bought it or demanded their studios buy the tools they were familiar with.
A potential lost sale from lack of piracy happened with ZBrush. They didn't have a trial version (they seem to be trying to pass Sculptris off as their trial version and I've been using Sculptris before ZBrush ate it and they're nothing alike interface wise XD) and I didn't want to pirate it to try it out so I ended up buying 3d Coat instead.
Though having just typed that I'm now wondering if maybe they didn't have a trial version because they're expecting to be pirated? XD
Interesting idea about micropaying people to do things they'd normally be doing (free promo for their favourite things), wondering if that would be like sponsored blog posts/videos in a way, and if it would make those infomercial accounts better or worse XD
It would make it insanely bad. There would be links flying everywhere and they will get drained of all value ;)
I'm internally crying already just thinking about it XD
lucky we live on a decentralized platform that can do all sorts of cool things given the right incentives :)