I say it again, people will buy the product if they like it. They don’t know if they will like it so they get a pirated version to test it. Solution: Return of the demo disks
All I know is piracy definitely has an impact on bad games/products and if you give the consumer something worth buying, they will most definitely buy it if or when they can afford to.
They might also recommend it to their friends or talk about it online which lead to additional sales that would not happen if they didn't sail the high sea.