According to the 'Guest Author' of the currently top trending news article on Crunchyroll, "There’s a lot to be excited about in the new Crunchyroll website." While there are several features that some might consider advantageous, quickly glancing at the comments section of the article reveals a tidal wave of resistance to this forced, unwanted, and unwarranted change. Several long-standing Premium subscribers pledged to discontinue their membership with the platform.

Crunchyroll users registered in the U.S. were given the option to experience Crunchyroll Beta on April 27. Crunchyroll's method of getting users to use the new site was to overlay the regular website with more prompts than it uses to advertise its Premium service– which already clogs both the classic and Beta interfaces. Once a user would 'try' CR Beta, finding the way to restore the original layout was like searching for a needle in a haystack. As of June 15th, all users in the U.S. must be logged out in order to revert to the classic layout, which means that even Premium subscribers have no choice but to use the new layout in order to view Premium content– they don't get the option to use the original layout!

Of the 823 comments and replies I read, only 28 had anything positive to say about CR Beta, but even several of those had multiple complaints about it!

Some of the features coming with CR Beta that most users appreciate include a 'dark mode' (39 mentions) and a 'theater view.' However, many such features could already be accomplished using Chrome Extensions– and even more effectively!:

• Dark Skin for Crunchyroll
• Improve Crunchyroll
• Crunchyroll Enhanced
• Crunchyroll Theater Mode
• Crunchyroll Theater
• Better Theater Mode for Crunchyroll

Crunchyroll Beta is visually comparable to Netflix (45 mentions), Funimation (53 mentions, some of which as a next resort), and the Crunchyroll mobile and Roku apps (88 mentions)– but with more bugs. The comments make at least 121 mentions of unsubscribing/cancelling/ending years-long memberships, 36 mentions of resorting to pirating/piracy as a more attractive alternative, ~445 requests for an 'option' to restore the 'old/original/classic' layout. There are 38 concerns about avatars, 16 complaints about a bugged queue, and 44 questions of whether Crunchyroll's site developers even considered the feedback they had been given when Beta was still optional.

Some other ways users have described Crunchyroll Beta (and how many times each was mentioned):

• Careless (72)
• Hate (55)
• F•••[ing] (32)
• Sucks/Stupid (50)
• Crap/Crappy/Crud/Sh••/Mess (140)
• Bad/Worse/Worst/Horrible (91)
• Garbage/Trash/Waste/Dumpster-fire/Junk (46)
• Difficult/Hard/Problematic/Wrong (164)

Some quotes of top comments: (Note: Upvote count is increasing significantly by the hour)

259 upvotes: "Hate it." —CR Premium member, year 4-5

385 upvotes: "Please add NOTHING and leave EVERYTHING ALONE." —CR Premium member, year 2-3

283 upvotes: "PLEASE AT LEAST GIVE US AN OPTION TO SWITCH TO CLASSIC" —Member, year 2-3

205 upvotes: "I wish they would keep the option to return to the old interface." —Member, year 4-5

900 upvotes: "Horrible new interface here we come. Goodbye beloved avatars. Goodbye CR's anime history. Goodbye ease of finding release dates. Good bye ease of use. Goodbye free flowing comments sections with real advice." —CR Premium member, year 12-13

Crunchyroll betrayed its user base (again) and it must not force this change on a paying userbase. At the very least, Premium subscribers should be given the option to keep the original layout. This would be a win-win for members and Crunchyroll, since Premium is CR's primary moneymaker and a large sum of users– non-members who tried Beta, standard members in the U.S., and even Premium members in Canada alike– are quite upset by Crunchyroll's executive action in this regard.