This isn't worth arguing... Anon makes a living from commissioned series. He doesn't make enough to run dozens of projects on his own. He takes few commissions (often enough to live and pay bills). Almost all Meraki uploads are donation run or self funded. The stuff he gets paid for isn't the massive profit you claimed. You link a thread where someone randomly claims he makes 4k a month and pockets it with no proof. He admits he makes a living off his work but very specifically says it's because he lives from his editing and translation work not his scans. Also even if 4k a month for Meraki is what they make, that's not liveable in most of the world. I say this because that is allegedly his entire income, part of which goes into paying teams, then hosting website, then rent, food, bills, and taxes. He and celes are joint income because they are actually married in real life. Even if they weren't he would still be making less than a liveable income. I have handled finances for a lot of scan teams, trash (met dru irl, Allen didn't want to meet because he doesn't accept donations and chooses to keep anonymity for the most part) and have coordinated a large amount of members and groups. If they were actually making bank off this why the fuck would they not be picking up millions of series and paying tons of people?
People frown on a lot of things but you seem like a hypocrite for asking for donations and selling mouse pads to host a site that doesn't own ANY of the projects uploaded here. This post had comedic timing because after a shit storm over donations and so on resulting in the major attractions of the dex being taken back you say "yeah we need more donations to keep the server running but if you don't want to donate you can buy our low effort anime mouse pad". Your site accepts donations when it is just a collection of illegal uploads that the scanlators don't own and you sure as fuck don't own.
Most don't do it for a living, and anon said I make a living off what I do and deliberately mentioned that the stuff he makes money from is legal editing and translation work, and the highly popular series that he doesn't own are often self funded or donation funded. Cherry pick facts all you want, I don't care.
Also that was a meme I sent anon and then decided to upload. I don't care how long you've been doing this but it seems youre salty you don't make any money from it, since your releases are exceptionally niche and many are nowhere near as popular as any of the series anon worked on. You say scanlators are bad and asking for money is bad, then counter with I KNOW BETTER I'VE BEEN HERE LONGER AND DONE MORE SERIES.
Also scanlation is almost never about profit. I've tried to commission champion and even give them free staff for certain projects, offering to pay their fees in exchange for faster releases, they declined all offers. They don't really ask for donations much anymore at all, I have to actually go out of my way to look for where they ask for money.
The owner even admits he wanted to go legit. That means even the owner acknowledged this site is illegal but wants donations and merch sales to keep a dying site afloat.
Also let's take a look at these profit driven bastards :
Allen: has over a thousand chapters, doesn't accept donations, commissions, doesn't have his own site anymore, graduated UT Austin last year and has been looking for work since
Dru (the only person you can argue was in it for money) tried to scum others out of popular projects by asking for the authors permission (he got their blessing more often then not but they had sold the rights to their stuff away so it was little more than a shiny star to show off) siphoned donations and took a wire transfer for 2k for site funding, allegedly made off with 5k and never updated site. In person is just an Indian kid going to college (lives in parents basement for summer I shit you not.) used funds to buy a couch to sleep on while in mall in Philly (I was there)
lh: pays staff well, has short delay, good series and quality, owner is foreigner and tung doesn't pocket funds. Most of it goes to hiring new people
Tony: turns away most commissions because they are low quality or not in his audiences interest. Donations go straight to team most of the time, has a day job and killer beard.
Anon: makes a living with legal work commissions which he tries not to do too many of because it would drive away audience if he took every paid job for every series, most of funds come from his legal business where he is a freelance worker editing and translating.
Hati: refused 99% of commissions, team is mostly interest based, if audience demands it and pays he has a chance to continue, but if teams get dick of projects he drops them or sends them to another smaller teams who need donations and commissions more. Set me up with a number of different teams interested in commission work who also had day jobs
Oddyssey: albex is 13, rin is 14. Noodle is 16, arckey is 18 and in med school. Was gonna meet them in Canada but arckey had school, and flying in and visiting a 13 year old kid from the internet is a bad idea. Arckey used donations to pay for nursing school because his family can't afford most of it, stopped most work because he needed to do actual reliable jobs and couldn't just scanlate his favorite stuff. Rin was paid with Pokémon games, clothes, and a 3DS. Albex wanted a phone, didn't want to risk having to explain to his parents some adult in the internet sent him an $800 phone because he did some photoshop stuff. Was too young to be able to receive PayPal payments, funds currently saved for when he needs them.
Lalo/valhalla: student, worker, accepts donations but not for most things. Unless given large amounts of money will not do anything that isn't hentai, isekai, or something he is currently reading.
Jai/delle/one time scans / 95% of teams : works on what interests them. No website. Discord only. Does whatever interests them. Doesn't accept donations, when offered asks for money to be used to pay other people to help them.
You say you are a scanlator, scanlation is for money. I believe you because the chapters you release have patreon links in them. Small, a sentence under a panel or in a blank space usually, but that's acceptable since none of the stuff you scanlate is more than 2 pages so a credits page and a donation page would be overkill. But if you do this for a living why do you only do things with 1-2 pages and little text, niche stuff? Why do you have patreon links if scanlators live off of their commissions?
