I don’t think people are “refusing”
I know a few people who have no reason NOT to learn to drive, but just don’t and instead mooch off everyone else.
My folks had a falling out with a couple they’d been friends with for ages because they refused to get their licence… But then expected them to come and pick them up from the train station when they were invited to dinner, spent most of the night telling everyone how smart they are for not having a car, and then expecting a lift back to the train station. Having just spent a couple of hours banging on about how much financially better off they were, I saw it as essentially stealing to then demand someone else use their asset and running costs to carry them around for free.
My sister in law finally got her licence at 30-something after a couple of decades constantly harassing family members for a ride.
I pay for non popular things - bands that aren’t well known, YouTube creators who haven’t started doing those stupid “MUNDANE TASK 😱 GOES WRONG!” thumbnails yet, games or software that are free to download but hey maybe some money would be cool if you could, independent news and radio, etc.
Once something is popular I’ll just thieve it. Artists are creators deserve to get paid for their work, but once they start getting paid dozens of times over for no extra effort it’s hard to feel too bad about borrowing a free copy.