From an economic perspective, the industry initially viewed this activity as purely destructive—a theft of intellectual property that cost millions in lost revenue. Yet, hindsight offers a more nuanced view. The ubiquity of Naruto torrents created a market that did not previously exist. The series became a "gateway drug" for anime in the West, introducing a generation of millennials to the medium. The massive, vocal community built around these torrented episodes generated the buzz that eventually made Naruto a lucrative property for Western distributors like Crunchyroll and Viz Media. It is arguable that without the aggressive grassroots distribution via torrents, Naruto might have remained a mid-tier property rather than the juggernaut it is today.
As the series concluded, torrenting shifted from real-time viewing to preservation and "curation." Because of the high percentage of filler episodes—nearly 200 in Shippuden alone—the community created specialized "cut-down" versions: naruto torrents