First of all, nitpicking: the population of the world has been increasing in the third world, middle/upper class westerners in general have a steadily decreasing population. Plenty of the charts were US exclusive.JemJar said:snip
Anyways, in general, I think it doesn't really matter exactly what tricks and business models and pricings were used to separate people from their money, as long as it is shown that they ARE willing to pay for media. Even if all the gaming growth would come from hard-to-crack consoles and mobile phones, it's really telling that people ARE willing to pay more and more for them, while they could just watch some pirated movies and read some pirated books.
For that matter, it's interesting how the traditional media are growing too, and not just the profits, but the amounts of songs/books/movies being created.
I'm not even literally saying these happened "because of piracy", just that file-sharing is inherently interconnected with a great focus on access to more and more data nowadays. For example, indie bands can now easily find an audience thanks to youtube, and then self-publish, or do a Kickstarter, or announce a concert on Twitter, and make a living from a small niche of fans, where decades ago, a publisher would have laughed at them. So more music made, more profits to music, etc.
That is happening everywhere, and I just don't see a way to wish away the supposed effects of piracy, without also taking away the benefits of the open culture that the Internet brought. The idea of "surfing" in a sea of information, and first experiencing lots of new content without borders, and only worry about "rewarding the owners" second.
The publishers, and even some shorter-sighted developers, would rather turn the Internet into one walled garden, or a corporate-owned store, where we can all stand in lines and get our appropriately bought content bit by bit, not even because they are certain that this would leave them with more money, just because they are terrified by the thought that they can no longer keep account of every single video viewed, book read, and game played.