Depends on what you're buying IMO. If you're "buying" it in the sense of buying license to listen to it like with DRM like iTunes, nothing could make that worth it IMO. But if I'm buying physical media of the music itself (eg. Vinyl) then I'm usually willing to pay whatever the market price is for that album.
iTunes is DRM free, you can easily move the MP3 files to any device (even ones that have never had iCloud access).
I don't buy physical as I would wear it out playing the only track I would want to listen to on the album (as often it's only 1-2 songs I am actually interested in.
Often Pirating can come with not only risk but also can be not the best quality out there, the easiest pirating method I know of getting music is finding the song on YouTube and that is defo not studio quality.
I know not much will go to the artist but this is the best I can do without the money or ability to go to there shows and not enjoying Streaming Services.
As a Mac user myself, I pirate FLAC because the quality is superior to most things I can buy, most albums I like 1-2 songs and it’s definitely better to just pirate and go to music festivals.
Anyway, I pirate FLACs and transform them to ALAC to sync it to Apple Music, the worst but only form to conveniently listen to HQ music on iPhone. (I still miss PowerAMP on android)