I used pirate streaming websites as a kid, but I thought fewer people use them today because the video quality sucks. Any stats on the percent of people using them over time?

Not really my focus, you'd have to hunt about.

This is current:

  According to research conducted by NERA Economic Consulting and the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation and Policy Center, over four-fifths of all online piracy-related activities are linked to illegal streaming websites. This trend is especially prominent in the TV and movie industry.

~ https://dataprot.net/statistics/piracy-statistics/

but vague on details, there are many sources quoted by no drill down on methodology, context, details that matter to nerds, etc.

Modern piracy sites have 1080p standard. Many titles are in 4K and 720p.

Oh I've noticed that, but the 1080p bitrate is horrible. Looks more like upscaled 480p DVDs

i definitely use free streaming websites when i can't find a show or region locked.

strange how much torrenting i used to do. theres just more content on youtube thats interesting.

There's a lot of overlap and it takes time and resources to determine the status of content.

eg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb_and_Dorothy

via bitTorrent or eDonkey from MVGROUP: https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=Herb_and_Dorothy

on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnYcPLLiGFk

Is that a copyright violation on youtube? Do we care enough to find out and or report it?