User blog comment:Tinni/MangaHelpers will no longer host manga/@comment-1454424-20100618132110

To put it bluntly, it has started to really eat into their bottom line. Manga publishing is a business and if the Manga publishers cannot make a profit, they can't continue to publish manga. It's as simple as that. Not all of it is due to scanlation. Some of it is due to the declining birthrate in Japan. Some of it is due to the decline of the "magazine" format and rising cost of publishing in-general. But it is a fact that because the manga is often available online sooner then it is available in the news stands, people in Japan who would otherwise buy the manga magazine are simply accessing it online. Thus causing publishers to lose money.

Now if I were consulted, I would suggest that they find a way to give people legitimate access to the manga online. Similar to what has happened with Crunchyroll and the Bleacn anime. I wouldn't mind paying a modest subscription fee to a manga hosting site endorsed and licensed by the manga publishers. Even if the translations were as bad as Viz translations usually are.

Having said that, given some of the attitude I saw on display around the time Crunchyroll got the license to stream the anime, I get the distinct feeling that there are some obnoxious people with a inflated sense of entitlement who refuse to acknowledge the reality of the costs publishers and producers of manga and anime, respectively, incur in the process of publishing and producing the manga and anime in question. If you are going to have that kind of attitude, then expect your favourite manga and anime to become difficult to get hold of or even disappear. These things aren't free and having the attitude that they are or should be is just being naive and akin to shooting yourself in the foot. Indeed, it's people like that who are a bigger problem to continued enjoyment of manga and anime then publisher crackdowns. Because with attitudes like that, there is no incentive for publishers to trial new business models and modes of delivery. If they don't think people are willing to pay for the product they are making, they will simply not make it. Manga publishing, afterall, is not a not-for-profit venture.