7 ms·

I think the take is: If 100k people watch the episode, spending $200 more for higher quality subtitling comes out to... a whopping 0.2 cents per person (per epi

I think the take is: If 100k people watch the episode, spending $200 more for higher quality subtitling comes out to... a whopping 0.2 cents per person (per episode). Let's just say that would cost an extra $1/month per person. Are they price sensitive enough that they won't go to a competitor that's a few dollars more expensive per month if it has better subtitles? I don't know, but maybe some manager believed they were, and thus it was worth it to make the subscription a little cheaper.

chii 1y ago
i think you've counted it in a way that makes it sound cheap, but in reality isnt. $100k per month is extra revenue, if they do a half-assed job. A customer actually has no competitor to move to - crunchyroll has a defacto monopoly (barring piracy). The price of the subscription is already adjusted to be the maximum of what the market would bear for maximum revenue - presumably raising that price higher would lead to lower subscribers and revenue.
- brigandish 1y ago
  > barring privacy That’s the key right there.
  - bl4ckneon 1y ago
    The ironic part is that a large majority of the piracy is just crunchy roll rips or subtitles from crunchy roll.
    - gh02t 1y ago
      Also worth remembering that CR itself started as a pirate site.
- praxulus 1y ago
  >A customer actually has no competitor to move to - crunchyroll has a defacto monopoly (barring piracy). When fansubs were good, Crunchyroll was forced to compete with them on quality. It's hard to convince people to pay when the alternative is both free and much higher quality. Now that they've driven fansubs groups "out of business", they no longer face the same degree of competitive pressure to deliver a quality product.
  - jcranmer 1y ago
    My recollection is that, by the early days of Crunchyroll, fansubs weren't really competing on quality so much as speed. And with the legitimate licensors having access to the scripts slightly in advance of the Japanese release, the fansubs could never catch up to them in release speed.
    - extraduder_ire 1y ago
      In the very early days they were a piracy site that hosted fansubs.
Loocid 1y ago
$1/month extra cost on $16/month of revenue is very significant though.
- Retric 1y ago
  1$/month was just wildly off. They have 17 million paying subscribers. If they subtitled 1,000 episodes of content a month * 200$ = 200k / 17 million ~= 1 cent per subscriber per month. Actual cost per subscriber is well below that.
varenc 1y ago
> Are they price sensitive enough that they won't go to a competitor that's a few dollars more expensive per month if it has better subtitles Outside of Asia, Crunchyroll is a de-facto monopoly on legal anime. From the article, 70% of new releases are exclusive to Crunchyroll. They're not losing customers to platforms with better subs, because customers have no alternative. (Besides pirating, but I assume the golden age of Tier 1 fan subs is over)
- jeron 1y ago
  I was going to ask, crunchyroll has competitors for legal anime stremaing?
  - Tor3 1y ago
    At least in Europe, if CR has licensed a show or a season, then nobody else can license the same show or season. There's always exactly one place to watch one particular show or season. So, no competition - licensing goes to one, and only one place. Likewise, if Netflix has licensed something then CR isn't getting that license (e.g. Komi Can't Communicate - it's on Netflix, therefore not available on CR)
    - Erikun 1y ago
      This may be true for current seasons but previous seasons and finished series are often available on other services. At least crunchyroll and Netflix have an overlap (in Sweden). Frieren is available on both as an example.
      - Tor3 1y ago
        Look at Railgun, for example.. they're all old, and each season is either on CR or on Netflix, never on both. Same with Index, and some others.
        Erikun 1y ago
        I’ll definetly give you that there is weird licensing schenanigans going on.
matheusmoreira 1y ago
> Are they price sensitive enough that they won't go to a competitor that's a few dollars more expensive per month if it has better subtitles? They should probably consider that this competitor is actually mpv playing the DRM-free blu-ray quality fully subtitled mkv files obtained for a grand total of zero dollars from organized groups of people who simply care about anime to an absurd degree. "Paying customer" is a synonym for "fool" in this context. Paying for inferior products is just foolish. It is damaging to one's self-respect. It is even more damaging for the reputation of the corporation. A bunch of fans regularly put them to shame by releasing better products on a daily basis. That's just pathetic.
- what 1y ago
  Without those “fools” paying, you would have no content to pirate.
  - matheusmoreira 1y ago
    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.
  - DecoySalamander 1y ago
    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.
    - GreenWatermelon 1y ago
      Anime existed before Crunchyroll and will continue to exist after Crunchyroll.
    - Dylan16807 1y ago
      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.
FooBarWidget 1y ago
Why is the $1 added to the subscription cost? They don't redo the subs every month. It's developing subs once and then enjoy the benefits forever. It should be a cost that's amortized over something.
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  Well, it's not completely crazy. They don't redo the subs for an old show every month. But they do create new subs for new shows every month. They have constant, ongoing costs of subtitle development, and if they permanently increase those costs, they will be spending additional money (compared to the alternative) every month forever.
fhd2 1y ago
I don't believe managers can operate with that kind of precision. I don't know how they'd execute the "let's spend 200$ more" idea. You're either in a quality or in a cost reduction mindset usually, these are _really_ difficult to mix for management. I know I've tried :) When you even bring up how long something takes, that can already have adverse effects on quality without you actually decreeing anything.
- bonecrusher2102 1y ago
  Well, they can, and at least did. I know because I was one of them! The P&L that I rolled up to our execs was dead simple as well. I think everyone had a pretty clear picture of what was going on, down to the fraction of the hour.

chii 1y ago

i think you've counted it in a way that makes it sound cheap, but in reality isnt. $100k per month is extra revenue, if they do a half-assed job. A customer actually has no competitor to move to - crunchyroll has a defacto monopoly (barring piracy). The price of the subscription is already adjusted to be the maximum of what the market would bear for maximum revenue - presumably raising that price higher would lead to lower subscribers and revenue.

brigandish 1y ago
> barring privacy That’s the key right there.
- bl4ckneon 1y ago
  The ironic part is that a large majority of the piracy is just crunchy roll rips or subtitles from crunchy roll.
  - gh02t 1y ago
    Also worth remembering that CR itself started as a pirate site.
praxulus 1y ago
>A customer actually has no competitor to move to - crunchyroll has a defacto monopoly (barring piracy). When fansubs were good, Crunchyroll was forced to compete with them on quality. It's hard to convince people to pay when the alternative is both free and much higher quality. Now that they've driven fansubs groups "out of business", they no longer face the same degree of competitive pressure to deliver a quality product.
- jcranmer 1y ago
  My recollection is that, by the early days of Crunchyroll, fansubs weren't really competing on quality so much as speed. And with the legitimate licensors having access to the scripts slightly in advance of the Japanese release, the fansubs could never catch up to them in release speed.
  - extraduder_ire 1y ago
    In the very early days they were a piracy site that hosted fansubs.

Loocid 1y ago

$1/month extra cost on $16/month of revenue is very significant though.

Retric 1y ago
1$/month was just wildly off. They have 17 million paying subscribers. If they subtitled 1,000 episodes of content a month * 200$ = 200k / 17 million ~= 1 cent per subscriber per month. Actual cost per subscriber is well below that.

varenc 1y ago

> Are they price sensitive enough that they won't go to a competitor that's a few dollars more expensive per month if it has better subtitles Outside of Asia, Crunchyroll is a de-facto monopoly on legal anime. From the article, 70% of new releases are exclusive to Crunchyroll. They're not losing customers to platforms with better subs, because customers have no alternative. (Besides pirating, but I assume the golden age of Tier 1 fan subs is over)

jeron 1y ago
I was going to ask, crunchyroll has competitors for legal anime stremaing?
- Tor3 1y ago
  At least in Europe, if CR has licensed a show or a season, then nobody else can license the same show or season. There's always exactly one place to watch one particular show or season. So, no competition - licensing goes to one, and only one place. Likewise, if Netflix has licensed something then CR isn't getting that license (e.g. Komi Can't Communicate - it's on Netflix, therefore not available on CR)
  - Erikun 1y ago
    This may be true for current seasons but previous seasons and finished series are often available on other services. At least crunchyroll and Netflix have an overlap (in Sweden). Frieren is available on both as an example.
    - Tor3 1y ago
      Look at Railgun, for example.. they're all old, and each season is either on CR or on Netflix, never on both. Same with Index, and some others.
      - Erikun 1y ago
        I’ll definetly give you that there is weird licensing schenanigans going on.

matheusmoreira 1y ago

> Are they price sensitive enough that they won't go to a competitor that's a few dollars more expensive per month if it has better subtitles? They should probably consider that this competitor is actually mpv playing the DRM-free blu-ray quality fully subtitled mkv files obtained for a grand total of zero dollars from organized groups of people who simply care about anime to an absurd degree. "Paying customer" is a synonym for "fool" in this context. Paying for inferior products is just foolish. It is damaging to one's self-respect. It is even more damaging for the reputation of the corporation. A bunch of fans regularly put them to shame by releasing better products on a daily basis. That's just pathetic.

what 1y ago
Without those “fools” paying, you would have no content to pirate.
- matheusmoreira 1y ago
  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.
- DecoySalamander 1y ago
  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.
  - GreenWatermelon 1y ago
    Anime existed before Crunchyroll and will continue to exist after Crunchyroll.
  - Dylan16807 1y ago
    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.

FooBarWidget 1y ago

Why is the $1 added to the subscription cost? They don't redo the subs every month. It's developing subs once and then enjoy the benefits forever. It should be a cost that's amortized over something.

thaumasiotes 1y ago
Well, it's not completely crazy. They don't redo the subs for an old show every month. But they do create new subs for new shows every month. They have constant, ongoing costs of subtitle development, and if they permanently increase those costs, they will be spending additional money (compared to the alternative) every month forever.

fhd2 1y ago

I don't believe managers can operate with that kind of precision. I don't know how they'd execute the "let's spend 200$ more" idea. You're either in a quality or in a cost reduction mindset usually, these are _really_ difficult to mix for management. I know I've tried :) When you even bring up how long something takes, that can already have adverse effects on quality without you actually decreeing anything.

bonecrusher2102 1y ago
Well, they can, and at least did. I know because I was one of them! The P&L that I rolled up to our execs was dead simple as well. I think everyone had a pretty clear picture of what was going on, down to the fraction of the hour.