Soo, has there always been this many people online (guests mostly)? I've noticed lately there's been a heavy increase in site traffic. Is it recent? I remember there being a time where it didn't go over 20/30 people, now the average is 190+.
Never knew that you can do so. I think it's probably just anecdotal. Not enough data to compare and conclude.
Most of us have moved on and only very very few occasionally visit, compared to pre November 2014 I suppose.
There's no other dedicated pairing website in Naruto fandom that has been established for more than 10 years. Only narusaku has that; which perhaps (anecdotally) serves as a-very-far-fetched-proxy indicator that this segment of the fans has always been the one niche group that truly support the series financially. lol. J/k.
Yet, I'm glad that most of our quasi predictions that we made years ago happened:
1) Back in 2014 right after the ending, we 'predicted' that Naruto franchise will decline, since it treated its loyal readers badly in the end and chose to entertain a tiny segment that contributes almost nothing to the franchise (looking at you NH/SS folks). 250 million copies total between 2000-2015, less than 1 million in 2019. A major downturn for a $10 billion worth franchise in which 80% of its gross revenue comes from manga. International manga *nett revenue* on aggregate basis contributes to less than 5% in the overall industry. When someone told you that international sales is better/worse, that 'better/worse' was baselined against the 5% of international market manga value ratio. You don't serve local Japanese readers, your product won't even live that long, don't even think about overseas market. Today Boruto manga sales per volume is not even 10% of what Naruto volume sales had in its heyday.
2) Back in 2014 right after the ending, we 'predicted' that Kishimoto will face challenges starting his new work, since he treated his loyal readers badly in the end. We knew since 2010-ish that Kishimoto was planning to work on something else. We didn't predict that his new work will be axed in 5 volumes (half of what he intended). But when it did happen, it comes as no surprise. We see it coming long before anyone else.
3) We 'predicted' that Kishimoto will 'return' to Naruto franchise, one way or another. Not something new in manga industry, especially the well-established franchise. Well, I called it out jokingly that it seems someone was fired. Truth is, when things went south, they need something to blame. It's human nature. People always try to find a black sheep when bad things happen. But the true reason has always been consistent when it comes to business: money. That's all there is. More sales, more money, more survivability. WSJ, like any other business, needed cash flow and capital fund to survive. It's the norm. When a writer didn't perform on a highly valuable franchise, he/she will be replaced. The rest of the news are just noise and drama. They'd probably do it to save their face or avoid criticism or whatever reasons they'd like to publicly announce. It doesn't change the fact: changing people that are in charge of your product is (and has always been) business decisions to make more profits.
There's nothing special about the predictions. It's all just common sense. You treat loyal readers badly, you'll loose your sales. You choose the loud minority that contribute so little, you'll be doomed to fail. We can make such quasi-prediction since it has happened before elsewhere.