Without those “fools” paying, you would have no content to pirate.
I'm actually one of the fools who tries to support creators by "buying" (licensing with 0 rights) their things. Why do you think I'm so angry at the shit quality of the products I receive in return? Anger doesn't even begin to describe what I feel when I pay for streaming services and get video so poorly encoded they have artifacts in black frames.
I am also paying for crunchyroll and trying to support the creators in various ways.
But still, I often find myself watching anime from fansub groups even though I have a legitimate, official way of watching them. Paying for a streaming service that is objectively, significantly worse than even the shittier pirate offerings does make me feel like a fool.
Anime will not disappear if CR implodes. It will still be funded by the Japanese market and other streamers. There will probably be fewer shows per season for a while, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Anime existed before Crunchyroll and will continue to exist after Crunchyroll.
And sometimes it's more fun when there's no central source. Snarky chapter titles and leaving in a commercial for Morning Rescue when editing down the TV rip? Sure, why not.
Correlation is not causation and all that, but anime was better without Crunchyroll.
They should probably consider that this competitor is actually mpv playing the DRM-free blu-ray quality fully subtitled mkv files obtained for a grand total of zero dollars from organized groups of people who simply care about anime to an absurd degree.
"Paying customer" is a synonym for "fool" in this context. Paying for inferior products is just foolish. It is damaging to one's self-respect. It is even more damaging for the reputation of the corporation. A bunch of fans regularly put them to shame by releasing better products on a daily basis. That's just pathetic.