Boost is fantastic for keeping my place. I just don’t have to worry about switching to the web to look something up, or even just to do some math. Even if the app gets killed in the background, you’ll be returned to where you were. It’s great, I wish every app could have such a good memory.
Piracy has always been a distribution issue. There are definitely greedy lazy people who will always want more for less, but the organized effort required for piracy only happens when fair access is impossible.