Anime Industry in Decline?

Originally Posted by Boo-kun

Is full of bs. Were there no fansubbing and free distribution, I seriously doupt anime/manga would be as popular worldwide as it is today. Fansubbing if anything gives viewers change to sample what's worth buying and what's not.

I'll eat my mossy hat if fansubbing hasn't brought incredible (and free) advertisement for bloody many japanese products.

With anime and manga having no real digital distribution model like music, I argue that fansubbing has indeed put a large dent in anime sales.

Why pay for what you can get for free? Those who watch fansubs and say "You know, I want to buy that on DVD" and then actually follow through on that idea are in the minority, to say the least. I'm usually not in this minority.

The only thing that keeps me buying manga is that scanlations are usually incredibly poor quality and I'd much rather read a chapter or two of manga while laying in bed before sleeping than hunching over a computer, zooming in and out with CDisplay on each page.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Boo-kun

While this is probably true now to some extend, due to batshit insane weeaboos in large numbers, fansubbing in my opinion made the whole jap-phenomena big through internet.
Were there no internet, there would certainly not be fansubs, and thus the world would be "animethewhatnow?".

Sure, if you pulled the internet plug off now, I'm sure everyone would bleed money to see anything they could get.

Too late ='D

It's very true that fansubbing has made anime popular and more accessible. Without fansubbing we'd likely be limited to shonen jump shows or other major titles that somehow made it outside of Japan.

However, just because it made anime popular doesn't mean it made it profitable. It's popular and easily obtainable through the internet, for free. When distributors crack down on fansubs to protect their bottom line, they're often looked upon with disdain from the fans.

The fans are just too used to getting things for free.

There's nowhere I can't reach.