I see no reason why the cost shouldn't be a function of copies sold, or rather that the maximum of cost and possible revenue shouldn't be a function of copies sold.

Not sure if you're thinking of proposing some new system for the industry to go with, that would not be a subject of the same piracy related catchphrases.

Of course this isn't a guarantee that companies are always good actors but we can't control that.

We can, in fact, control that with our wallets. To some degree, yes. But it would sound more stupid if someone says "we can't control companies" and something like "piracy should stop" together.

The cost of piracy may impact either one or both, but the original post is "company bad so piracy OK" so it's not really a small scale / one-off discussion.

This is what we can't control though - the revenue split between devs and publishers. As for the "company bad so piracy ok" I don't think there is anything to discuss. It's viable and I could use that myself (though I might not even have enough time to care about pirating stuff, I just don't buy products related to specific parties).

There are some pirates who will pay for a copy when all is said and done, but I would bet a large sum that these people are vastly in the minority. There's not a good deed potential purchase at the end of probably even 1 in 5 downloads of anything.

And I would say there is even less deed potential in trying to convince pirates into buying stuff instead of downloading it for free. The point is, information spread helps sales of good products (so you want more paid/free end users, not less). Another point is, most pirates will always be pirates (so it's useless to blame people who wasn't even going to purchase your product by default). Third point is, digital products are luxury so it's not a loss of people when they don't buy your product (they will be just fine without it) - it's your loss when people are not convinced to give you the money (the amount you ask for) for your product.

companies are predatory, but it doesn't justify unbridled piracy

So what you're saying is "yes some companies are providing bad products but it doesn't mean people are entitled enough to not pay for such products"? Then what would you say as a day 1 purchaser to people who paid 75% less than you to receive the same product? Where is the point when you go from "that's ok since it was an official discount" to "that's not okay because they didn't pay for it (~~as much as someone else paid~~)"?