Remember kids, piracy isn't cool. By stealing software (especially indie software) you are robbing real people of profits that they most likely deserve.
But man, is it nice to see people ensuring that you can truly own the software you purchase.
Piracy is very cool. It allows people left out on the price-consumption curve to enjoy what everyone else is enjoying. Usually children, students, and people living in third world countries with low incomes or bad exchange rates. I pirated tons of software when I was younger, you probably couldn't price software cheap enough that I would (or could) actually buy it. Now it simply isn't worth my time to pirate.
I still pirate roms and games that aren't sold though :)
I just finished my Retro Arcade catalog earlier this evening. I'm setting up a pi5 in our living room. It's super exciting to be able to expose my children to my favorite childhood games all the way up to the PlayStation 1 on a single device.
Remember kids, piracy is cool. By copying software, you are living in a utopian future 100 years in the future instead of putting on your clown make up and pretending as if digital goods follow the same supply/demand laws as physical goods.
It's nice to see people ensuring that you can truly own digital goods 100 years before it becomes the obvious standard.
The guide is primarily written from an "offline game preservation" standpoint and assuming that you already own a copy, but I'm not naive as to who will also get value out of it, and I do include enough info that non-owners can still follow along. I'm also fairly morally-flexible when it comes to demoing games before purchase, especially considering that publishers often have zero concern whether the product they're selling me will even work on my Linux machine - hopefully that is not something I will even need to think about in a decade from now.
But yes, in general I fully agree that you should support when you can, and even from a practical standpoint it's much easier to keep games up-to-date when you own a copy.
nit: Profit is money after expenses. You may be robbing real people of money covering expenses, which seems much worse. Better to use revenue or income.
But man, is it nice to see people ensuring that you can truly own the software you purchase.