Can we talk about these AI translation groups for a second? :((

I’m not going to pretend I’m some saint here. I read on unofficial/illegal sites too. I’m currently in college, and at this point I’m trying to save as much money as I possibly can. So yeah, here I am, reading on these sites lol. But I also want to make it clear that I’m not someone who has never supported authors officially.

Back in hs, I actually used to spend money buying official chapters. I even bought official merch, books, etc. Honestly, looking back, it’s kind of crazy that I was able to casually spend money on that stuff while I was still in high school TT. Bidding on twt for signed books Lol
I still buy official merch when I can, too. I love supporting the series I actually care about. It’s just that now that I’m in college, my priorities are different and I’m much more conscious about where my money goes. Sometimes I simply cannot justify spending money on every single chapter when I’m trying to save.So yes, I knowingly use unofficial sites. I’m not going to act morally superior about it.

BUT.

The AI translators that keep spamming communities and promoting their paywalled sites are seriously starting to piss me off.
What made unofficial translations fun in the first place wasn’t just getting chapters early. It was the community around them.

I actually love when the translation groups would leave random messages between chapters, make jokes, talk directly to readers, or occasionally pull some ridiculous prank with fake subtitles. Sometimes you’d get to the end of a chapter and realize the translator was just screwing with everyone. It was stupid, but it was FUN. There was an actual feeling that people were sharing something with other people.

And yeah, some groups asked for Ko-fi donations or support. I honestly didn't mind that. If someone is spending hours translating, cleaning, typesetting, proofreading, etc., asking for donations is understandable. At least there was usually some transparency and a sense that they were actually part of the community.
A lot of those groups would also stop translating a series once it got an official English release. They understood that the unofficial translation was filling a gap. Once the author had an official English release, they stepped aside.

Now we have AI generated translations being mass-produced, dumped everywhere, and used to funnel readers toward paywalled websites. And that's the part that annoys me. It feels less like someone sharing a translation with a community and more like a spam with manhwa attached to it.

AI translation itself isn't even necessarily the problem. Technology can obviously make translation faster and more accessible. The problem is when people use it to pump out low-effort translations at ridiculous speeds, spam every community they can find, lock chapters behind paywalls, and turn every untranslated series into another way to make money.

And again, I KNOW THE IRONY.

I'm literally sitting here reading unofficial translations because I'm a broke college student trying to save money. I'm not pretending piracy is suddenly morally good because I'm doing it.

But there's a difference between "I want to read this because I can't afford to buy everything right now" and having every community constantly flooded with AI translation spam designed to drive traffic toward someone's monetized website.

I miss when scanlation communities felt like communities. Give me the human translator leaving a dumb message at the end of the chapter. Give me someone ranting about how difficult a particular panel was to translate.

I'd take that over another soulless AI translation followed by: "Read the next chapter on our website!" any day.

umm thnx for reading my lil rant lololヾ(☆▽☆)