I've followed indie devs talking about this stuff, and I've been a critical consumer of digital media for decades. That's all fairly anecdotal, to be fair, but I am not aware of any hard data that's public and transparently sourced.
The segment you talk about exists, indeed I've seen it in action, but chasing them down has rapidly diminishing returns. Their loyalty to the product is just as shallow as their loyalty to the author, and they'll just scamper to other media they can get easily if cornered. Indeed, that is actually a fairly good argument for some mitigating measures: it's like a lock on your house, it only stops you from being the lowest-hanging fruit, but that often goes a long way.
I think I pretty much agree with everything you said here. I think just taking extremely minimal precautions would deter like 90+% of piracy for people who are doing it for the "I just don't want to pay for it" crowd. Just like locking a door doesn't stop someone who really wants to get into my house, it'll still stop a vast majority of cases people trying to get in; most people aren't going to break down the door, or bust open a window, or get a bulldozer to go through my wall etc.
That's why I was more or less on board with IA doing Controlled Digital Lending. Obviously if someone really wants to break the DRM and distribute the media, they're going to do it, but I think that for most people any amount of effort will be too much, and they'll abide by the rules as a result.
I think the National Emergency Library was a huge mistake, because it basically removed those minimal restrictions, making themselves a giant target. It was certainly well-intentioned but it made a lawsuit almost inevitable.
The segment you talk about exists, indeed I've seen it in action, but chasing them down has rapidly diminishing returns. Their loyalty to the product is just as shallow as their loyalty to the author, and they'll just scamper to other media they can get easily if cornered. Indeed, that is actually a fairly good argument for some mitigating measures: it's like a lock on your house, it only stops you from being the lowest-hanging fruit, but that often goes a long way.