The theater-going experience is a dreadful one , with cellphones, screen talkers, crying babies, and other dimwits and whathaveyou.
The ability to avoid this is one of the few things I actually like about working during the evening. Once summer's over and the kids are back in school, the weekday lunchtime-matinee crowd is terrific. There aren't many people in the theater at all, and most are either alone or in pairs. Everybody's cool and quiet and basically acts like they have some damn sense. I've never once had to shush, stare down, or eviscerate anybody during an early matinee. Friday midnight shows, on the other hand...
As for cheapskatedness leading to piracy, that's my brother-in-law to the letter. He's amassed quite a sizeable collection of homemade discs by copying stuff he picks up through his Blockbuster Movie Pass membership, and he's surprised I haven't done the same. Heck, renting stuff made my wife to decide to collect all the Gilmore Girls season sets. I'm just glad she did it when you could pick up S1 and S2 for $18.88 each.