My fear is that, eventually, the prevalence of streaming will make archival difficult, especially for the more popular shows. Freeing up fansubbers for obscurer anime is great but I would choose it to not be at the expense of shows I'm more likely to watch, and watch more times. Originally I was concerned this could happen to Bleach, and then I watched 272 and don't care anymore, but those are gripes for a different thread. At the very lease I'm glad I got us talking about the dynamics of fan-subbing. Dark Dragon brings up a good point that these companies ever offering anything is pretty cool of them, though I disagree that foreign viewers give them nothing in return. We help spread the word, we get others excited. I doubt Naruto would have been as well received in the US had internet anime nerds like us not already absolutely fallen in love with it. In exchange for our beloved anime, we serve both as a barometer for what has potential to do well in foreign markets (or more importantly what will certainly suck), and we provide the mythical word of mouth advertising that these companies would kill for.
Are we spoiled? In as much as technology has made acquiring and viewing anime easier, absolutely we are. However, I think if the day comes that only only streaming is available, I think the net impact for the anime producers will be negative.
Don't hold back Archangel, tell us what you really think. ^_^Originally Posted by Archangel
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