A second benefit of public anime fansub distribution came to the scene much later than the first. Publicly distributed anime fansubs arguably served as a popularity gauge for those titles that were fansubbed. But at the moment, every title that could conceivably make money is being licensed by someone. Very old shows like "Star Blazers" and "Robotech" (both fine shows of their time) are seeing release on DVD. Even Marmalade Boy (which was licensed just recently by Tokyo Pop) will not be coming to a Commercial English release. With just about everything that is decent coming to the English language already, what is left to test market? The only shows that come to fansubs anymore are those titles that are so obscure or so "niche" that they be made profitable. For example, I don't think I will ever see "Oniisama e" (which was subtitled by the Technogirls as "Brother, Dear Brother) released on DVD despite the fact that it is the best TV show every made in any language (in my opinion of course). But these shows by their very definition, are appealing only for a small market, and not suitable for public distribution because people watching them out of context will get some weird notions about the genre. Private distribution (see below) is okay for this, but public distribution is not good for niche market shows.

To sum up, the two biggest benefits of public anime distribution have become much smaller in the last 5 years. There is simply less good that I can do for anime by keeping a public distribution site open.

Move on to reason #2 (much shorter)