AnswerMan has gold this time—how ratings aren't relevant to most anime aired in Japan (long-runners excepted), since they're super-late at night; the advertisements are for other shows by the same producer; most people record/stream them; the real money for the anime comes from home video sales.
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2018-06-25/.133369
I'm sensitive to this because I feel bad that my favorite shows get a few pennies of my Crunchyroll subscription, so I tend to buy Blu-rays and donate them to the library.
Steam and Amazon and others let you “buy” a streaming copy of the show, which is also nice because
1- this is often much cheaper than collector Blu-rays, and
2- there's no physical copy so maybe a larger slice (of the smaller pie) goes to the publisher.
The only downside compared to "buy and donate to library" is the loss of the buzz generated by the library circulating it.
I just finished "Your Lie in April" anime and loved it so so so much that $130 dollars are firing lasers at my pants pocket, wanting to fly to A-1 Pictures/Sony and its backers. $130 *per* *set*, and there's *two* sets for the whole series.
(And no, I won't buy the Asian DVD boxset.)
Maybe I'll buy the manga, even though it's the anime I'd really like to support.
First world problems :).
