My guess is It’s probably cheaper and has much greater variety. You can watch anything from any streaming service through one single interface at the price of one service.

because IPTV is like $6 per month and has every single channel known to earth… it’s a tiny fraction compared to any cable especially if you watch sports (the only real reason to pay for cable anyway)

Pirating implies some knowledge and effort some people may not have or want to get into

Paid Legal services are so enshitified some people may think they are getting ripped up

Paid illegal services are often HUGE bang for buck value (no enshitification, no limits, no nonsense and often better customer service)

I dont subscribe to any streaming service (except the occasional free prime trial, to be full disclosure), not even the one in the news story… but I can still answer your question…

Because I want to pay a single service to watch everything. Like Netflix used to be. Watch everything I want, for one monthly price that was reasonable.

But its not like that anymore. Every company looked at how well Netflix used to do, went “Fuck them! I want all that money for my self!” and took their content off Netflix, and made their own streaming services.

Now if you want to consume any media, You have to subscribe to 50 different subscription services, for hundreds of dollars a month, Which is just Cable 2.0 but with worse service and options.

Access to Usenet providers is not free