Shin-iti 真一💃@autopilotgod
**TL;DR:** Cute joke, but it's a lie.
I'm not trying to pick any fights nor anything, but it needs to be clarified this misconception that westerns don't want to pay for anime, manga or games. This is a complete mistake and we have history already to show this.
1. **Torrent usage** (the main tool for traditional piracy) is at historic lows as a share of internet traffic.
2. People avoid piracy because illegal sites are full of risky ads and poor experiences.
3. **Steam** has seen massive sales growth — reaching record revenue in 2025.
4. Unlicensed software usage continues to drop.
Even with more internet users than ever, overall piracy site visits fell 5.7% in 2024 (to 216 billion). Good services like **Steam**, **Netflix**, and **Spotify** have greatly reduced piracy in their fields by offering convenient, affordable access.
Manga is a clear exception. Legal options are still limited and often disappointing:
- **Manga Plus** is growing but feels incomplete for many readers.
- **K-Manga** faces complaints about translation quality and heavy censorship.
So far we don't have a good enough quality for easy access and good pricing for the general public.
This is why publishing piracy (driven mostly by manga, manhwa, and manhua) rose 4.3% in 2024 — while most other categories declined.
Direct anti-piracy crackdowns by big companies have had limited global impact. The strongest evidence shows that **better legal services** are what actually reduce piracy.
**Bottom line:**
Yes, people want to pay for the services.
No, if we have good services, the majority wont keep using piracy, it happened with movies and series, happened with anime and happened with games.
Good Service lowers piracy more than any other action we saw in internet history so far.
Below there are some other studies, but I didnt get too many of them because I assumed most people wouldnt read.
They are not irrefutable evidence that Piracy is dying, but its many more studies showing a trend on what is actually working against piracy, which is good services and easier ways to purchase legal content.
Now there are not many other studies saying otherwise.
By the way, about your joke meme, if you want to mock westerns, don't put Japan into the "Wojack" position (that character you put the japanese flag), because this makes you look like you are mocking Japanese people yourselves.....