alt Hacker NewsThen we aren't disagreeing. I never said anything about stealing or piracy; I agree with you that not being able to afford something doesn't give you the right to take it.
I think we're responding to different things. You're upset the original person mentioned piracy, whereas I took their rant to be more about licensing changes being yet another way companies are creeping up prices from one-time-purchase to rent-forever. You used to be able to pay for a font and use it in a magazine, but now you have to pay per impression.
And moreso, I'm annoyed by most of the comments saying that the free fonts on your computer should be enough.
No, we disagree. I think those companies should creep up their prices. There aren't enough type designers employed in the world. The social cost to cumbersome font licensing is essentially zero; in fact, for the reason I gave just one sentence ago, it probably tilts the other direction.
Further: the free fonts on your computer are enough. You can do the full range of type design with what ships on Win10 or macOS, and you can do it strikingly. I cringe at my dumb blog typefaces today, because I could get an equally striking effect with the standard web font stack; most of the work is in setting the text, not in picking a particularly mannered typeface.