What worries me is that publishers will start saying "piracy on the PC is at 90% with or without DRM. Let drop the DRM- let's not develop for the PC at all". Piracy ends up hurting gamers, regardless whether or not DRM is any excuse.
While piracy can't be stopped, there are things that can be done to lessen it's impact:
Gamers need to lose the feeling the developers owe them something- that it's their right to have a game. Being increasingly anti-establishment, this message must come from their peers.
Gamers need to feel that piracy is bad, and is hurting the industry. There is no such thing as a victimless crime. Again, being beaten over the head by the media won't cut it, this message must come from their peers.
Games need to make better use of the internet. instead of just activating the game, the net should be an integral part of the game- if you want the good stuff that makes the game really worth playing, you need an account. Valve got this right with Steam for Half-Life and Team Fortress 2. EA could have got this right; Spore without the automatic updates and user content would have been DRM enough- the game's no fun unless you can share creatures.
Games need compelling demos well before launch. Releasing them after the street date means all the momentum of anticipation is gone.
Publishers need to stop treating customers like criminals. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, the way you treat people is the way they'll ultimately behave.
Games need to be cheaper (especially in my country). A pirated copy of a game doesn't automatically equal a lost sale. There are people who would love to buy games, but can't afford them, and thus pirate them instead (this is an explanation, not an excuse!) Dropping the price would increase sales, especially in the current economic climate.

That is a good argument in some cases, but certainly not all. Especially with Team Fortress 2 Steam is great to have for how easily patches can be applied to it and how extensively Valve makes use of this. For Half-Life 2, however, that's a different story because it is a singleplayer game that wouldn't require an internet connection. I don't know how high or low the percentage of players without a permanent internet connection is, but it seems that still today internet activation is more than a nuisance to many.
Also, because of Steam, simply playing the newer Valve games on a LAN party for example has become nearly impossible. Everybody needs an own account unless one wants to share his data with the others, even with the offline mode there can be trouble when you don't have an internet connection, etc. This isn't even a great problem for me, but I still think it's unfortunate that it's hardly possible like it used to be with older games. I accept it for all the good I get through Steam for these games, but I surely wouldn't want all games to function like that.
Anyway, I'd also guess that the piracy rate of online-centric games that require activation, accounts, etc. is far lower than that of most other games, so what you're proposing should certainly be profitable. I'm just saying that I don't think it's desireable from the player's point of view.
No matter how increasingly rare this is, I think there should be more to developing games for the developers themselves than just making profit. Sadly, though, I guess piracy does indeed make this much harder.

Great. Companies managed by idiots will shoot their feet and tens of other developers will be more than happy to step in and take their predecessors places.
They DO owe me something - I pay for those goddamn games and I demand to be respected, and not treated like an idiot. Developers need to lose the feeling that they are doing us a favor by publishing games, that are becoming more and more pathetic each day. They want to earn some money, they have to make an effort and treat me like a customer, and not like a thief.
Sorry, but the moment that kind of activity becomes a routine, developers will kiss my ass goodbye. I WILL NOT accept online activation of a single player game. Period.

While I think that was a bit dramatic, I agree. If I didn't give my clients what they expected I'd have to face something much worse than a few people with nerd-rage on a forum. I'd likely be facing a team of lawyers.
Regardless I think you missed his point. I think he was saying that some people think that if the developers don't meet their expectations in some way that they deserve the copy for free (I've personally heard this as an excuse for piracy, sending a message to 'the man' and so forth). They don't. You, however, as a paying customer certainly do have the right to have expectations for the developer.