Hmmm I'd say it's more like they got killed and taken over by a parasite, but then because the parasite had an actual business model and engineers for a decade people just said "oh well actually this is an improvement" then that parasite got absorbed by a bigger, more evil parasite and things started going to shit.

when crunchy first started, they streamed my fansub group's work, my translations, without asking permission or crediting us.

they were never Batman/Bruce nor Harvey... not even as ethical as Two face...

Bah, I just use a torrent aggregator site where groups that rip from crunchy, Amazon, Netflix and the like post. Thanks groups!

unfortunately websites can even use data transfers (without mentioning legitimate accounts/streams) to promote themselves to business partners and anime studios.

so pirating directly from their site is still helping them indirectly.

They are a former pirate site, they went legal around 2008:

On January 8, Crunchyroll will stop accepting user-submitted videos and other content from individuals, and only host videos approved by copyright holders. Gonzo and Toei Animation are two other major Japanese copyright holders of anime that decided to stream on Crunchyroll. ANN interviewed Crunchyroll founder Vu Nguyen in March.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-11-17/tv-tokyo-to-also-stream-naruto-through-crunchyroll