Miles | Anime by the Numbers

HiAnime is dead, so here's a few important pieces of context to remember: 1. It was the biggest bootleg anime platform in the States, accounting for ~15% of all anime piracy with ~4M US monthly users per White Box analysis. 2. It was a for-profit outlet. That was its purpose. It made the people running it a *lot* of money. It was not helpful for media preservation. 3. Many cite accessing unlicensed/unavailable anime as a key benefit, but that represented less than 1% of US viewership per White Box. The most popular titles on HiAnime were broadly the most broadly available. 4. That said, a slight majority of people who used HiAnime also used legit outlets for anime as well, which showed that many people used it to "fill gaps" or because they didn't know where to watch a certain series. 5. Most of the subtitles (90%+) were not "fansubs" but rips of the official subtitles. When it was a fansub, they were ripped from the fansub group and monetized, which isn't really any better IMO. 6. The hydra head is real, and there are plenty of other outlets for piracy. That said, whenever the top pirate site goes down, some % switch to legal services, which goes back to fund the industry. Most anime revenue comes from overseas these days, and streaming revenue is the biggest driver of overseas revenue. Every view counts! 7. No one is "wrong" or bad or anything for having used these kinds of sites, particularly if they have no other means to do so. However, if you have no other option, I'd strongly encourage you to seek out venues that don't directly finance the people exploiting anime against the wishes of the creators. Even with ad-block, you're providing economic incentives for bootleggers by using these sites. I'd recommend learning about torrenting instead.