And I don’t subscribe to the “but my HTTP requests” rationalization that’s so common here on HN.
I used to think kind of like this, but came to the realization that it doesn't matter, at least for movies. First, it's not "people" that expect you to pay for it, it's corporations, and they don't really make money from you directly; if you pirated a movie instead of buying it, it really makes no difference, because either they came out in the cinema and the companies expect to make as much money as possible from the cinema ticket sales, or it came out on streaming which has a really muddy economic calculation. It's much different than, for example, a band's album on Bandcamp or a short film on Vimeo. Second, you're not even really "taking" something in the sense that you're not depriving someone else of the thing you have now, because it's digital, unlike if you stole a Blu-ray from someone's home or off of a shelf. Thirdly, sometimes it's legitimately not possible to get certain media other than pirating. There are multiple movies that I've wanted to watch and pay for but couldn't because of rights issues, and in those situations I'd have no option but to pirate or ask a friend to "get" me a copy.
Essentially, if it's a small artist or filmmaker, support them directly, and if you want to see a movie, go to the cinema to watch it if you can. Shows might be a different matter, but I also think they fall under the same "streaming economics" model where the pirate makes little/no difference in reality and you often can't even pay for the show individually if you wanted to.