Yeah, that isn't how economics work, they increased the price because they believe it will be a more profitable price point. I guess they could argue they lost the price sensitive customers to piracy and are just giving up on that segment and focusing on the people who just pay whatever?
Yeah exactly. Like when Netflix increased their prices and prevented password sharing and everybody claimed that they would foothold business. Turns out that the profits lost on people who stopped using their services paled in comparison to the profits gained from the price hikes and new people signing up after being kicked off their old account.
Are you saying that increasing prices of a good or service to the point where people don't want to pay for it anymore doesn't contribute to a rise in black market sales and distribution of the good or service?
You are right my argument was predicated on the price rise being justified by piracy not the cause of it. If they don't like ESPNs pricing model can't they license their content elsewhere?