the scanlation scenes losing the plot

It's wild how some scanlation groups have gone from being hobby communities to basically running businesses off content they don't even own.

The whole point of scanlations used to be filling gaps, translating series that weren't officially available so fans could enjoy them. Whether you agreed with the legality or not, there was at least an understanding that it was a fan driven effort. Now, some groups lock the latest chapters behind paid access or push subscriptions and memberships as if they have the rights to monetize the work. They're charging people to read manhwas they didn't create, don't own, and don't have permission to distribute. The artists, writers, and official publishers see none of that money. Instead, a third party profits from someone else's intellectual property while presenting themselves as the gateway to the series. If you're going to pirate something, at least don't pretend you're entitled to build a business around it. It's one thing to translate as a fan project; it's another to put a price tag on unauthorized copies. That crosses the line from "sharing" into monetizing someone else's work.

If you genuinely support the creators, encouraging readers to buy the official release once it's available makes far more sense than squeezing every possible dollar out of pirated chapters. At the end of the day, if a scanlation group is profiting from unauthorized translations through paywalls, premium access, or aggressive monetization, it's hard to argue they're doing it "for the fans." At that point, they're running a business on intellectual property that belongs to someone else.