@pdonk It's not even a big deal that they want to make money through donations or patreon or whatever, people work hard on scanlation and them wanting to be paid for their time isn't any less scummy than us reading manga for free. What's real fucked up is how they tried to discredit the site on the way out.
It's also kinda dumb how they think pulling out of MD will somehow get them more money despite having less visibility (like kissmanga readers will go out of their way to go to your site and pay you lmao), but that's besides the point, it's downright rude to paint MD as the villain even as they're respecting your decision to pull chapters and telling people insulting them in the forums to keep it civil.
@freestyle The whole issue with this particular bout of drama is that
none of the groups that are pulling chapters are doing it for free. They all run patreons or take donations in some form. That in and of itself isn't bad, but they threw a tantrum while doing it and tactically timed it specifically before the merch store launch specifically to make MD look as bad as possible.
Also, the "well if you have a problem with it do it yourself" argument has never saved anybody from criticism, and it shouldn't. Don't lean on that like it means poor quality or scummy conduct is somehow immune from criticism just because the alternative is nothing.