So it's all about Britain not having a pirate party?

As for the "technology", mayhaps, but apart from monetary concerns there are also downsides to more direct democracy such as lynch mobs and other guilty until proven innocent ideas being very popular.

Take our non-nuclear route for example, that one was not based on corporate interest of the elites, it was only decided after a lot of people demonstrated and demanded it. In fact Merkel had originally promised that the reactors could run for another decade or so and then turned around in the face of public opinion. The energy companies were not happy about that at all, but had to swallow it. It might have even cost some jobs in that sector, although the whole renewables sector also creates many jobs. Either way, at least here I do not really believe that the people have no power, they just have to make use of it.
We have one state where the greens have a majority IIRC, so even the two "established" parties are not all that established and can be challenged at the voting booth. And IMO that should happen more often as it is a wake up call for them to listen more to the people. However, if all the people who do not like the established parties do not vote at all, this becomes far less likely to happen.

And that is why I find it relatively important to vote, to bring more dynamic into the political system, to show politicians that the people will not tolerate corruption etc. and will vote for another party or a completely new one if the established parties keep selling out. However, that only works if the people are actually educated (I was in a publich school and certainly not brainwashed by the government there) and put in at least a little bit of effort to change things. The worst voters are the ones who vote for parties out of habit or don't vote at all. They both contribute to the status quo.

And this is also why I do not like FPTP, because it is stacked against all the smaller parties as can be seen in the USA. Here it makes sense to vote for them as they might at least get into a coalition or in the worst case prevent a government formation if the established parties refuse to work with them. But either way we have the means to show that we do not like what is currently happening in the government while the citizens of the USA can only vote for two sides of the same coin. The requirement of course is that we actually make use of that power.

Of course living in a nation state also means that you may not agree with the majority but I heard nation states are the greatest thing ever, so we can't change that.