Not a bad solution if you're looking for things that are usually removed from results in the west, eg, torrents and stuff like that.

So streaming didn't kill the warez scene, it just got massively shadowbanned?

It's certainly not dead, but having access to cheap, high quality, easy to use alternatives certainly stopped many from using "pirated" content.

With price increases, more subscriptions needed, more restrictions, etc, we'll probably see more people sailing the high seas.

Yes and no. Because of aggressive action from IP holders a lot of these sites went underground and deliberately aren't indexed in the US and EU but providers from Russia or Switzerland got shadowbanned.

Or things from the old Internet that are not profitable, not advertised, don’t use Blog spam tactics, or https.