OneManga shutting down

[Valles]

So... you've never gone to see a movie in the theatre?

Average of once a year if that.

Never rented a video from Blockbuster?

 Including other media like video games, I can think of perhaps three or four times in the last twelve years or so.

Never gotten a Netflix account?

Nope.

Never checked a book out of the library?

Less and less, these days. I find that their selections tend to be limited - which, given shelf space costs and such, I blame them not at all for.

Never gone to a bookstore and read the first chapter of a manga?

Both an inadequate sample size - the first volume of Negima, for instance, didn't grab me to speak of; I needed longer than that to really pick the story up and start caring - and, to my mind, discourteous to the seller, given the wear-and-tear it imposes on as-yet-unsold product.

I find the argument that the only way to get free previews of manga is through scanlations to not satisfy my burden or proof.

And I do not, will not, and have not attempted to make that argument. I'm taking issue with what I find to be an unwarranted assumption that the practice harms either the legitimate owner of the property - the original creator - or their legal assignees, including publishers.

Now as to your argument that offering work for free increase sales. Let's put this to the test. Thankfully we have a really large sample size to compare: Free webcomics (where the authors give away all the material for free and you can pay for collections) and commercial comics.
Now, tell me: is there a major motion picture being produced for... say, Sluggy Freelance? How about PvP? No?
Well, maybe comparing the webcomic artists to people like Jim Lee and Frank Miller is bad. After all, Jim Lee and Frank Miller are comic superstars. People who do purely indy comics can't possibly make as much money. Well, unless your Bryan Lee O'Malley, who does an entirely indy comic that netted him a major motion picture deal due out this summer.

I would be very interested to see a falsifiable or detailed natural experiment on the subject, showing that those selfsame webcomics would, in fact, have received film publicity and so on, but this is too general to qualify.

Here's the thing: I will admit offering free samples improves sales. But it is by far not the only way, nor neccesarily even the most successful way of doing so. If a company decides not to offer free samples of their work to you, that's their right. There are a lot of ways for you to preview before you buy, after all.

They do, indeed, have that legal right. Just as I have the right to regard their attack on a practice I find to be rather commensal to be both laughable and in bad taste.
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."