I dare say we shared the same bitterness (and anger) in realizing that absurd situation they created. But it also happens I'm getting old, well into my 50s, and have quite a few severe health issues making it an almost certain fact that I won't last indefinitely . Knowing that, I'd rather not waste whatever time I have left dealing with such nonsense. So pirating is not the best option for me but it's certainly not something I would frown upon or discourage anyone from doing if they wanted to.

If you still have all those ebooks and readers, there are ways around all the muck that can give them to you for real.

I do. But I also realized I would never be able to read those ebooks as comfortably without using a device whose behavior (aka what it tracks and reports back to its maker) I can't, or not easily, control. The only way I now read my ebooks is on my Linux computer using the Foliate epub reader (or Calibre, for all other file formats) because I know Linux and Free/libre software/apps are much more trustworthy than anything else. Alas, reading on a computer is often a lot less comfortable than reading a good old printed book that I can easily carry with me and that I can read whenever I'm not working at my desk.