Downloading a torrent client and VPN is seen as confusingly complicated for many of them. Once I help them get past that, I also have to train them to search safely and parse the file names of what they are trying to find. More than just informing them that a movie is not a 25 MB exe file, but that there is a convention around encoding/file type, bit rate, and how episodes/tracks are named.
It is understandable, but I think there is a huge mental barrier for most non-savvy computer users. I think that unless there is some friendly and non-sketchy all in one service to facilitate piracy there will not be some widespread upswell in piracy among the general public.
I've heard that paid Plexshares are more or less this. You pay to access a private streaming server that has all the content you could ever want. No VPNs, no torrent clients, no parsing formats, no viruses, no running an HDMI cable from a PC to your TV. It's as easy as any other paid streaming service, without exclusive content restrictions.
It used to be that either one required a bit of know-how, but I've personally seen cases where the barrier to entry is lower for just obtaining the media. Safety isn't just an afterthought as much as total ignorance.
In the most alarming case I witnessed, an acquaintance of mine had a friend who "knew enough to be dangerous": they were sideloading an app on their settop box for them that just pulled from some site. I'm sure it would work to watch rips of new movies or whatever, but I doubt it even used TLS.
I had to explain to my acquaintance that not only would it be easily visible by their ISP (and why that's bad), but that it was almost certainly illegal in the first place.
Getting a movie for free sounds obviously sketchy to most of us, but think about the number of gadgets and services that have been advertising exactly that for decades[0]. Understanding the difference requires some technical knowledge.
[0]: The catch usually being that "free" really means "after fulfilling some other obligation", such as signing up for a free trial of something.
A small-scale solution could be setting up a Jellyfin or similar server for all your friends + family members. Curate it with what they ask for, maybe give them access to a Sonarr instance so they can add content themselves. There are client apps for smart TVs, phones, and a web player. Maybe they'll like it so much they tell their friends, or want to set up their own :)
I anticipate some version of family and friend supported distributed services to continue growing in the near future.