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Jandila comments on Knowledge is Worth Paying For - Less Wrong
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One key cause of piracy left out of this analysis is the significant demographic of people who have internet but can't buy things over it. This usually describes teenagers in developed countries who have internet access, but don't have capital that they can freely spend on digitally purchased objects. The amount of young adults who actually have jobs is really falling in developed countries because of the promotion of internships and volunteering opportunities, which are easier to obtain than jobs and have equal or greater prestige. Even if they do have income, they may not possess credit cards. There's a good portion of this group that can't even drive to purchase things with cash. So every new possession they obtain by spending money, or rather getting an adult to spend/provide/transfer money, is a significant expenditure.
In this situation, knowledge becomes something it seems irrational to pay for, because it seems like it "should" be liberated. They might acknowledge that being able to understand physics better or win arguments has a value of $20 or $50, but they won't spend that when they could get a comparable result with an expenditure of time, even if said time is worth more than the money would be.
Right -- knowledge is worth paying for, but not all knowledge is worth the asking price, especially when the asking price is out of your reach in any case.
If I'm working two or three minimum-wage part-time jobs just to break even, the face price of a $100 textbook is effectively inflated against the index of how much I need that money for other things. The consequences of buying it aren't necessarily just being 100 dollars the poorer; that may be an electrical bill going unpaid; it might be two weeks of groceries I won't be able to buy. (Don't scoff at the inefficiency of working so many low-wage jobs; for a lot of real people in the US and Europe there is no other choice!)
If you have your basic survival needs met but little or no capital income (many teenagers and young adults) then almost any asking price is too high to consider. You couldn't pay it in any case. Exhortations to "get a job" or "save up" won't make it more viable to try and get a job, or save up -- you are working from a position of negligible expendable capital.
In my case, I make a paltry income thanks to the welfare system in my country, and am able to set aside a little disposable income (where "disposable" still includes necessities like clothing, medicine, and other obligatory expenses I don't have the money to just toss into my regular budget). In a good month, my medical expenses are low, I don't need new clothes, and there's nothing else I need for something but could, technically, live without. Paying for knowledge is sometimes viable, but the vast majority of the time I'm still better served by getting it for free if possible, or by direct interaction with someone I know who has that knowledge (thus "spending" my time, and any necessary social capital, which is a whole lot easier to come by than money, even for my autistic self...)
An asking price I can't pay might as well be an overinflated one, from my standpoint.