It's kind of like the insane amount of privacy of Adobe products is what gave them their current near absolute monopoly over the entire market. A huge number of today's graphic designers started off with pirated copies of Photoshop only to start using legitimate copies once employed, be it cause they purchased a license or because their employers paid for a seat.
Without piracy, which was essentially a for education free trial of sorts many graphic designers would probably be using other free or cheaper alternatives