And one last thing: some games I downloaded from HOTU that I played the heck out of, like "Sword of the Samurai" [1], which I consider a masterpiece, I later bought from GOG. Why? I dunno, I think I won't ever play it ever again. I simply bought it legally from GOG out of a misguided sense of duty, since the game provided me so many hours of enjoyment almost 20 years ago, when it was abandonware.

So it's not even true that abandonware always translates to lost sales :)

[1] https://www.mobygames.com/game/246/sword-of-the-samurai