Is Piracy dead or just gatekept?

Hi, just to start I AM OLD, I haven't really played games for years now but I remember the golden era when I was growing up, any game you wanted right there on pirate bay, change up some text or file and boom you got the game. Now when I've been looking to relearn how to get some of the newer games, because well I cant afford them right now (usually I buy games I loved after a while on steam to support the creator)... it's like a barren landscape out there, as if it's no longer even possible. I searched for hours through different sites like csrinru etc just to try get a copy of Project Diva and not one site on the internet had it, all broken links etc wth. I don't know if I'm missing some new golden secret ingredient that nobody is talking about to not get discovered or if Piracy is just not what I remember and a dead scene of people waiting for games for years before they can play them for free because a company decided to grace us with removing DENUVO or something that I just don't comprehend. What went wrong?