I think whatever is the most convenient wins. Much like what spotify and netflix has shown us this last decade. These streaming platforms filled the gap in connivence for the average normie and at a perfect price point which won't have users pounding down piratebay.
Most people just want to watch their movie or listen to their music without the complexity and hassle and are willing to pay a small fee for it. Convenience is worth a few bucks a month to many people including myself. I've almost completely moved away from downloading and hoarding music. I had TBs of flac back in the days but now, the convenience of just whipping up an app and streaming almost any song @ a few bucks a month is now worth a lot more than buying dozens of HDs, home servers, owning several seedboxes, stressing about ratio, etc and building a library flac collection is worth the time any more and for most people it isnt. For some it is, which is why they stay in the p2p community.
Much like torrenting and spotify, most people just want their product and not deal with the stress or learning portion. People with some income to spare are willing to pay monthly to avoid complexity and to avoid additional stress and get what they want at a click of a button.
There's always a balance imo and spotify really hit the mark. I mean whens the last time someone you knew talked about torrenting or filesharing? (Besides the obviously niche portion of the internet we are in and the ppl surrounding us here)
Torrenting has become pretty niche now with most good trackers going private and having this elitist type club where they get to act authoritarian and IMO opposite of what p2p sharing is all about.
Most people sit at these trackers WAITING and praying for freeleech (which happens rarely). Then have to stress about paying their seedbox, stress about protecting their identity and people CAN'T EVEN DOWNLOAD ANYTHING because of the fear of their ratio. That's the TOTAL OPPOSITE of what it was when this filesharing community started.
Even with a 10gbps line seedbox people just arent downloading enough to get at least a 1:1 on most of these trackers that are actually worth it. You really need to spend A LOT of time and energy for these trackers because eventually youll start uploading and writing scripts to snatch and upload some movies or courses which at the end is not worth it for 99% of the people out there on this planet that don't want to spend 20+ hours a week on a small hobby or trying to save some money.
Eventually the balance between money and "is it worth it" question comes, then you slowly drift off and eventually lose interest when you realize your SO and you just end up watching netflix instead, hop in the car play some spotify and end the complexity to your life because ultimately you realize that you were trading your time and energy (which is worth A LOT MORE than $10 a month subscription to a streaming platform). then the trackers all come to a crawling slow energy with just seedboxes and scripts running the show and no one downloading anything but seedboxes on scripts anymore and eventually a new law gets passed and more drama ensues
Then you have a kid and slowly drift away. You enjoy your new life with your wife, kid and a new laptop you bought. Watch netflix and stream spotify, you got the nice family discount plan with your cousins and end up paying $10 a month for all the streaming sites and spotify, eventually spending the time you would have on a thursday night (watching the RSS feed of a new album drop you wanted to hear or a new movie that just came out) with your family instead...
IMO most of the space does not encourage downloading but more about what the peer/downloader can do for them. Helping new members to the scene - instead of encouraging hoarding and fear which leads to people not downloading anything but at freeleech and eventually killing the community because honestly, if you don't have a itching for suffering you're not going to stay in this scene very long. The romanticized era and p2p explosion during Oinks reign is never coming back imo.