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Posted: Sat Mar 26 2022 9:26 AM |
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Posts: 98
Location: United States
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Don’t be shocked if people start sharing their accounts with friends and family once this starts…
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Maybe I’m not thinking about it in the right light, but I really don’t see how it benefits the business. I only see them losing viewers because of this move.
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Extensions: 411
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This is a greedy decision that will hurt them because a good portion of their viewers are free ad watchers for various reasons.
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Shit, Sony. As a longtime subscriber, this doesn’t even affect me directly, but it’s still enough to drive me crazy. Just be happy with viewers without ad revenue.
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Yeah, that makes sense. Most people use ad blockers anyway, so it’s pretty much no different than people using hack sites, except they’re using Crunchyrolls bandwidth instead. Big changes are going to happen now after a merger like this.
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Eh. I expected the effects of effective monopoly to take a bit longer.
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Extensions: 48
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Posts: 278
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brynhild wrote: |
Maybe I’m not thinking about it in the right light, but I really don’t see how it benefits the business. I only see them losing viewers because of this move. |
They are suffering from monopoly syndrome right now. They have minimal competition, so they think they can squeeze people for every penny. Time will tell if it’s successful for them or not
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Posts: 1109
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brynhild wrote: |
Maybe I’m not thinking about it in the right light, but I really don’t see how it benefits the business. I only see them losing viewers because of this move. |
There is no benefit for viewers. Sony simply wants to convert ad viewers into subscribers, using the near-monopoly stake in the anime licensing market (considering they consolidate Crunchyroll, Wakanim, and Funimation licenses under the same brand) – and the fact that others Competing services (apart from HIDIVE, if I remember correctly) use the same submodel without providing access to free content.
It’s just easy for them to dictate the rules of the market, and now only viewers can vote by wallet for that decision.
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Posts: 269
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They obviously believe that with the existing Crunchyroll subscription base, the more Funimation NOW subscribers transferred, plus the fraction of free users who bite the bullet and subscribe, they will have enough to make up for lost ad revenue. And if that’s not enough, they will raise the prices. It’s not like they now have an equivalent concurrent service, is it?
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Posts: 36
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(*I’m not promoting/advocating piracy, just noting that this will be a boost for the piracy scene.)
In the short term, I can see how some executives would look at subscription and ad revenue numbers and decide it’s not worth it. But it risks knocking Crunchy out of the center of the anime streaming scene, and I’m afraid that will reduce Crunchy’s long-term growth. But I confess that I am only a fan, I could easily be wrong; we will see where the community is in 10 years.
Edit: Reading more closely and other comments, it looks like the library will continue to have ad-supported viewing, which is more forgiving than I originally thought and still makes the anime accessible to people who could discover it or be recommended.
Last edited by hatguy12 on Sat Mar 26 2022 10:52 AM; edited 1 time in total
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Posts: 432
Location: Tokyo and Maryland
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Albion Hero wrote: |
Yeah, that makes sense. Most people use ad blockers anyway, so it’s pretty much no different than people using hack sites, except they’re using Crunchyrolls bandwidth instead. Big changes are going to happen now after a merger like this. |
Which is ironic since CR started out as a pirate site

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Yeah. Get ready for something similar.
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So that’s the first consequence of the merger, huh.
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