Piracy never stopped the music industry, and the folks who were harmed the most by music piracy were the poor, cash-strapped billion-dollar corporations whose entire operating models already depended upon sucking wealth out of the actual, struggling artists who do all the work.

And it seems that piracy has become a net benefit to new and niche artists. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01676...)

I'd posit that the book industry will turn out to be the same. Piracy will harm the bottom line of the companies already at the top while giving exposure to the authors at the bottom. The latter being the ones who often strong-armed into terrible financial deals just to gain access to book-industry's four big gatekeepers, and who likely need that exposure to help keep a roof over their heads.

Anecdotally, I'm one of those folks who end up purchasing many of the books I pirate or otherwise obtain for free, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who does this.