[WingsToDiscovery]

(I'll first say that I neither watch anime nor read manga, so my opinion is solely based on how I see things from an outside looking in perspective from a business standpoint)

I'm going to try and keep this short, because I don't feel like rattling on only to have someone dissect everything I'm saying to try and validate their point, and then myself having to counter that the same way.

So essentially, the anime/manga market is weak. Everyone knows that. It's not that there aren't fans of the market, or that the market has been saturated. Rather, restrictions are put on the products trying to be sold that drive the consumers away.

The problem with this market is the kink in the "elasticity" of the products. Elasticity is a term used in business to essentially describe how much consumers are willing to pay for a certain product before they seek an alternative (in the case of anime, to not watch, find another hobby, pirate, etc).

In this case, anime is extremely elastic. The general price for anime and the time it takes to produce it for a western audience murders the market itself.
People can use the principle that if one person steals, it only increases the burden for others. Conversely, one can say that at what point can a business raise its prices before it's not just one person stealing, but a mass. This is why the concept of elasticity is important. Many companies are self defeating.

As for the concept of something like streaming videos for a premium, there really isn't anything to comment on. We all see how this effects music in a much larger market, so it's pretty N/A here. If someone could either get something for free or pay a dollar, that makes them no more inclined to pay a dollar.

What does this all mean? That the anime market is not lucrative to begin with. Not because of the consumers, but because of the hurdles required to produce the anime to westerners, which jack up prices and make the product not readily available. Saying the company is the victim when they've decided to partake in a self-failing venture does not sit well with me.