One thing that leaps out at me about this ruling is that courts understand the internet a lot better nowadays. A decade or so ago Sony would have probably gotten away with the argument that Cox profited from the users’ piracy; nowadays judges themselves use the internet and are going to go “lolno, they probably would have been Cox customers anyway. It’s not like anyone pays for internet connection solely to pirate. And in most areas people don’t even have a choice of provider, so how is Cox profiting from this?”
Am I right in thinking though, if everyone used a debrib service, nobody would be seeding the torrents and it would all fall to bits?
Yup. Debrid is a superleecher service. It doesn’t actually seed anything, so it contributes nothing back to the torrents. If everyone used debrid, there would be nothing to torrent as there would be no seeders.