Comment by wccrawford

As an American that only knew English, Japanese media that was only available without English was my #1 motivation to learn more Japanese. By the time I was low-intermediate, basically everything was fan-subbed day 1, and it killed a lot of my motivation. There were still light novels, but the ones I really want to read are still quite a bit above me, and I have barely progressed since then.

And we're on the verge of AI being able to translate everything in basically real time, spoken or written.

I agree with your estimation of the value of media you want that's not available in your language, in regards to language learning. I'm a little sad that that motivation won't exist for many people in the future, but also happy that they can just enjoy the content.