I think the word 'archival' is the key word in this sentence:

>> A losslessly-encoded stream is near-worthless compared to a lossless rip, which is actually useful as archival material.

GP isn't comparing on the basis of quality; rather, GP is pointing out that streaming services don't function as an "archive".

It's a reasonable point. Modulo reasonable backup procedure, owning a copy of the track is a more robust as an "archive" than a streaming service that might stop serving the track at any moment.

However, I'm confused by the rest of GP's post. First, I'm not sure why pirating is necessary to get a lossless rip. Second, and perhaps tangentially, I've never understood collectors (of cards, or of coins, or of music tracks).