I'm actually one of the fools who tries to support creators by "buying" (licensing with 0 rights) their things. Why do you think I'm so angry at the shit quality of the products I receive in return? Anger doesn't even begin to describe what I feel when I pay for streaming services and get video so poorly encoded they have artifacts in black frames.

I am also paying for crunchyroll and trying to support the creators in various ways.

But still, I often find myself watching anime from fansub groups even though I have a legitimate, official way of watching them. Paying for a streaming service that is objectively, significantly worse than even the shittier pirate offerings does make me feel like a fool.

Anime will not disappear if CR implodes. It will still be funded by the Japanese market and other streamers. There will probably be fewer shows per season for a while, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Anime existed before Crunchyroll and will continue to exist after Crunchyroll.

And sometimes it's more fun when there's no central source. Snarky chapter titles and leaving in a commercial for Morning Rescue when editing down the TV rip? Sure, why not.

Correlation is not causation and all that, but anime was better without Crunchyroll.