Shaun Gentry comments

Aye matey! Until they start pushing more manga to the west, a pirate I will be!

Seriously though, I've bought almost $1,000 in manga (digital) in the last six months or so. I still read a ton of content that's pirated, but it's not available in my country and much of it never will be. The more content they translate, the more content that will be purchased.

Absolutely this. I am surprised I've not seen more comments of this nature here. As can be seen in one of my previous comments I am all for the rights content creators hold over their intellectual property. Personally, I have a Netflix, Hulu, and Crunchyroll subscription, I've purchased various localized VNs over reputable sources (Higurashi, Steins Gate, etc.) and, between Patreon and Pixiv Fanbox, I spend a bit over $100 per month supporting content creators I enjoy. I admit that I am quite lucky to be able to afford such a budget on entertainment.

That said, we live in an ever rapidly globalizing world. Far gone are the days where an individual spends their entire life limited to the entertainment and culture within their national borders. In most cases I am more than willing to stand by content creator's rights to receive compensation for their work and intellectual property. But if you, as a content creator, make no efforts to make your work accessible outside your own national borders or, even worse, take active measure to restrict distribution outside your own national borders then my support falls flat and I have no sympathy. I will happily read a fan-translated scanlation if I stumble across a manga that catches my eye and, upon further investigation, find that it has not been made available outside of Japan. Same goes for any type of media and any country. I understand that it can be hard to actively make your work more accessible (ex. an indie creator who can't translate their own work into other languages and can't afford professional localization) but, in those cases, you need to simply be willing to accept that fans and unofficial parties will pick up the work that you are unable or unwilling to do.

it would be like street musicians insisting people who don't drop a few coins in their guitar case walk by covering their ears

Except it is nothing like that at all. When a street musician is playing music in a public space they are releasing their performance in the public domain and would not be able to, or entitled to, demand compensation for the performance. When a content creator places their content on a private site behind a paywall they are placing it in the private domain and are well within their rights to demand compensation for rights to access/copy the work. Unlike street performers who force passers by to experience their performance, content/entertainment creators restrict access to content to those who pay to access. Suggesting that they should not have the ability to enforce their rights to receive compensation for the works they created is more akin to suggesting that software developers shouldn't be able to demand a salary as compensation for their work.