How big of a problem were pirates during the golden age of piracy?

The answer to your question requires us to clarify a few things about the question. What port city you live in and what you actually do for a living are the first to deal with.

Depending on where you lived, pirates could be an everyday concern or something that you only read about in the local paper. Or talked about if your town didn't yet have a newspaper. Or they could be an idle curiosity 99% of the time until the one day they became a very big part of your life.

Say you lived in Nassau and operated a shop. Pirates were very likely a part of your everyday experience. Without a governor, bureaucracy, or officials from the Lords of Trade and Plantations, a lot of necessary work wasn't getting done. Pirates filled in a lot of those gaps. Who was seeing to it that necessary supplies were being brought in? Where was the iron, lumber, cotton, and linen coming from? What about wine, or beer? Even basic foodstuffs like grain? New Providence could produce some, but most of those goods came from the North American colonies. With the breakdown in English oversight Nassau stopped getting shipments. Pirates, though, would steal these goods and being them into Nassau.

Let's assume you lived somewhere less removed from civilization though. Port Royal was destroyed in an earthquake, and King's Town was still small. So let's use Charles' Town, South Carolina. Pirates would have been a concern for everyone there, but mostly due to their influence on trade and prices. From here we're talking economics, and I would recommend Peter T. Leeson's fantastic book "The Invisible Hook" for more in-depth analysis.

Were you a merchant with concerns in overseas trade Pirates would be a major factor for your business. However, they would be a mostly positive influence. Even if an occasional shipment was lost to piracy, you would still be able to charge much more than usual for your goods. Since Charleston was the primary seaport for goods like sugar, tobacco,and cotton, English merchants would pay almost any price for your goods. Pirates allowed you to buy low and sell high.

Were you a plantation owner, producing tobacco or sugar, the effect was similar. But, were you a rancher, subsistence farmer, or green grocer dealing mostly in local trade the pirates would have much less of an impact on your day to day business. That is, until May of 1718.

Blackbeard blockaded the harbor of Charleston in May 1718. No shipping was allowed in or out for weeks. A number of citizens were held hostage until the ransom was paid - in medicine. Blackbeard needed medicine, and offered to buy it, but was rebuffed. So trade and day to day life came screeching to a halt in Charleston.

The rest of the year was consumed by pirates and piracy. Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet, and their small fleet terrorized the coast for months. They accepted a pardon, and went right back to piracy. Imagine your home town suddenly under assault from a biker gang and the National Guard has to come in to deal with the outbreak of lawless violence. For those residents, piracy was THE concern for several months.

The last question is your nationality. The Spanish in Maracaibo, Campeche, Cartagena, St. Augustine, and Santo Domingo had a lot more to worry about from the majority English Pirates during the golden age. English settlers had less to actually worry about, most of the time. But think about this: we're looking back on them from the present. At the time, if you were an English citizen living along the coast virtually anywhere, and you heard that pirates had terrorized Charleston for months wouldn't you be just a little afraid?

Pirates were only a mild threat to most people who stayed on land, but the fear of them was very real, and at the zenith of the Golden Age it was pervasive. That fear could work to your advantage, if you were an oversea merchant. Or if you sold newspapers or pamphlets. But for most, the pirates were a shadowy threat that never materialized but wouldn't disappear completely for years to come.