> It means you scare enough people into not doing it and make it a bit harder to do for others.

By which definition they utterly failed.

> Losing to piracy would see companies like Netflix and Spotify not thriving.

Not at all. Netflix and Spotify do well because they are a good value proposition for the average customer. Piracy is free at point of "purchase" but is (and always has been) expensive in terms of various sorts of overhead.