For readers, freemium is better than paywall. Very few readers would dispute this.

For authors, translators, and QI, I firmly believe that freemium is better than paywall also.

I gave my reasoning here:

https://forum.webnovel.com/d/810-keep-it-free-for-everyone-6-95-monthly-subscription-to-read-ahead-ad-free/3

-free readers will still generate revenue through ads (with paywall, many readers will use aggregators)

-$6.95 paid subscription will generate a lot of money (Crunchyroll is making $83.4 million a year from paid subscription). Even at 5% of CR size, that is $4.17 million a year.

-Keeping everything free means aggregators will not become popular. Paywall will drive many readers to aggregators. We definitely don't want to see that happen since it would be a very bad thing for the translation community.

-Keeping everything free means helping spreading the popularity of Chinese novels. Think of it as culture soft power for China. Japan has anime, manga. South Korea has webtoons, tv dramas and kpop. So keeping novels free instead of paywall will help with culture soft power.

Why would some readers choose to pay $6.95 to upgrade to Premium Membership?
https://forum.webnovel.com/d/810-keep-it-free-for-everyone-6-95-monthly-subscription-to-read-ahead-ad-free/4

1) To support the authors/translators/editors/webnovel.com

2) Ad-Free experience

3) Read ahead several chapters

4) Get more Power Stones to vote for the Novel Power Ranking (I'm pretty sure a Premium member would get more Power Stones compare to a free reader). It's fair that each day, a Premium member gets 10 Power Stones while a free reader get only 1 or 2.

5) They make a lot of money so $6.95 is nothing to them.

6) They want QI to translate more novels (QI makes more money = more money to translate more novels)

It's fine the way it is. Leave it alone.

    ssound5rs If Qidian is going in with a paywall, then my advocacy of a freemium is not beneficial to them. Especially since the poll I posted show that 86% of readers participated vote for FREEMIUM.

    ssound5rs What they do is keep attacking the messenger since they can't attack the message.

    1st point : you don't care about other users either. When someone says a fact you skip it and throw random statistics.

    2nd point : all of your arguments are random, all the statistics are from the top companies that even have monopoly on their respective areas.
    Or maybe you're even convinced that QI is at the level of Facebook but I won't get into that.

    3rd point : this post has no credibility, this whole thread has no credibility. If you expect someone to read 5 posts of you in a row you're mistaken.

    4th point : You have no proof it will work. What if it fails?

    5th point : Qidian hasn't read it and yet you've made a big deal out of it.

    6th point : There's no evidence of paywall happening in the future. If you have any posts about Qidian realizing the paywall please post.

    7th point : your poll is not valid since it's missing options. You made a poll with only two options that are to your benefit. It's perfectly normal for it to be more votes to freemium because of the word free. Add the current option too and try the poll again for it to be "legitimate"

    8th point : Freemium has it's cons too. There is absolutely no win-win situations in business.

    What are those cons? The biggest two are:

    meaning a high percentage of free users never convert to freemium. Hence time and money spend bad

    Performance problems – If you pay for something you want it to be the best quality and steady releases. How many novels are struggling with it?

    I can keep going but I'm too lazy

          Luta man I wouldn't even bother writing that much. He is in his own world, I would probably read his post if he keeps it in one answer and not split it in three different answers.

          Just annoying, but I found the option to mute threads and I make use of it right now, except this thread to much stupidity from the creator :D

              How about we agree that we disagree and leave it

                I am just going to say it clearly, these novels aren't worth paying for! No offense to the writers, no offense to the translators, but for english literature I would not buy this. If critics actually review it you know they will jump down the writing teams(editors, translators and authors) throats for such bad vocabulary, grammar etc. There is just a different standard for an english novel compared to these. My standard for these free novels are easy to read and good story. My standard for a book I get at the library is no typos, proper grammar, proper literary elements for story progression and transitions.
                I could share my many disgruntled feelings about qidian as it is right now, but what's the point you probably already know what I'm gonna say, so think about it for a second and realize this ain't worth paying for yet. If they make some adjustments and up the quality and consistency 10x more I will probably think about it.

                Legit not worth a dime yet, IMO, but if given a choice between full pay or free and extras are paid then i choose free, cause like I never use any of the paid stuff anyway lmao. My spirit stones always expire. I would do a membership thing though to support if they are really that poor, I might consider 9.99 a year for full access to all my favorite stories, but they will first have to update their app to make it so that I can read landscape style and able to explore new stuff just like on the website not some skimpy little search. Then I might agree.

                Survey result

                214 votes

                86% in favor of freemium
                14% in favor of paywall

                  I think that... if there needs to be a form of a payment towards Qidian, not saying that there does need to be one, or that there doesn't need to be one. I have no form of understanding towards where Qidian gets money from, or how businesses work. If I were able to pay 5.99/month for "Freemium" as the original thread maker calls it, I would do it because I am one of the maybe not that many.. that like to support the translators etc... I enjoy the novels enough to pay for them. But I'm broke as hell so that's not a thing I could do. But as was said, there would also be the free version available as well... so I wouldn't care then. But if there is a paywall, I'll leave immediately because that's like, 100 chapters for free, I would be feeling lots of pressure to pay it. Because I love reading that much, and I'd be very sad... but I guess I'd just go back to WW and just be sad for losing the ability to read a lot of novels in a very organized way... as you can on Qidian. In any case... uhm, I always kind of figured they'd introduce some way of making more money, because maybe ads aren't enough on it's own. And the "Freemium" thing, does sound like something I think some people would be interested in... including myself if I had a stable income. I don't really understand what "shit posting" means, but if being very passionate about something you enjoy and want to help others then enjoy for a long time too.. then I don't really mind it very much. If the thread creator is very active, and I haven't been too active on the forums on a daily basis, but I think it's a good thing if they are passionate about Qidian and the novels. And I'm not sure what people are upset about then, but I can also understand that perhaps the multiple posts are a bit frustrating or being a bit aggressive, not physically I mean like, in your opinions. You can appear to be so passionate in your opinions that it can cause others to be quite... thrown back. But I think that as long as you have good interests in mind then it doesn't really matter. But others have opinions and onions so you know they can do what they want. I'm just... rambling at this point... i'm sorry... x-x I'm giving myself a headache, I'm just gonna go. Hopefully I didn't seem too... idk.. idk.. sorry

                    Cilliez the fact that that literally took 20 minutes to write. i hurt. i sorry.

                    hold on why can't i edit my original post.. it says i dont have permission to edit it. I just wanted to put my two replies things comments together to be less annoying to some people, perhaps. but i can't do it. it says i can't cause i don't have permission. wth man.

                        deikatsuo thats his typical bias, his survey question are just plain awful but he won't admit it

                          I have to thank the OP, this was fun to read. All this drama :'D
                          On topic tho everyone else but the OP is right. Before you put me in the 'Freemium haters' corner, I am a huge fan of the freemium concept and participate in half of the sites you used as 'examples'.
                          I used 'examples' because they really aren't. All the websites you talk about either have a monopoly or are at the top of their respective fields. QI on the other hand is smaller than it's competitors (it's ranked lower that sites like gravitytales and doesn't even touch the soles of WW).

                          Like a lot of other people have said before, QI needs to grow rn. And the only way to grow in the current Chinese LN landscape is for them to stick to the current situation. I know you are 100% sure that they will introduce a paywall soon, but I on the other hand am sure that not everyone at QI is as bad of a manager as you think they are. Seeing the complete shitstorm they got in recently when trying to buy-out the competition they can not afford an other drama, especially since the Chinese LN community is really small compared to the music/video/anime/manga communities you have been talking about.

                          Also, as has been pointed out already but you decided to ignore it, there are BIG complications if they decide to either introduce pay-wall or freemium: QUALITY. Because let's be honest, if compared to 'real' (western) fantasy novels, most of the novels on QI do not even come close either in terms of story development, character depth or just plain grammar/translations. And let's not talk about the consistency of updates.

                          In the end this is a pointless discussion and I don't even remember why I read all of this.
                          We'll see what they do in the future and let's hope they make the right decision.

                            Pantera completely agree here.

                            but

                            Pantera QUALITY

                            yes, I think quality is important, but not really the story or development, but the translation quality is more important. People come here for a reason that is, easy and fast novels, not like western novels... in my opinion

                                  Billdoor true, that's also the reason I am here :D I should've put grammar/translations and consistency of updates before the others since they would indeed be my biggest reason not to want to pay

                                      Survey result Dec 8

                                      86% in favor of freemium
                                      14% in favor of paywall

                                        the little dude just don't give a damn about opinions.

                                        I don't know if it's cultural or personal views, but normally at least for me and in the place i live. If some author is posting his book or the translation on the internet for free or just behind a simple ad, we just shut the fuck up and take it. First time in my life that i see a person asking to pay, because it's what it is... anyone that used or use crunchyroll will know that the free part of that damn "freemium" is crap... it's basically or you pay or the quality is crap... so we already have here in QI a bad quality... novels that are abandoned, updates that take weeks, and others ( i can't complain about grammar and etc, since my english is awfull, but...i guess if i was to buy something i would chose the better quality).

                                        And that survey of his,,,, makes me giggle.... just 2 options and one is pay for it or the so called freemium.... hahaha c'mon...

                                          DiegoPedroso he will ignore you, post tomorrow some of his "information" again and forgotten your post will be. Its like Qidians communication policy, just read the parts in my favor and the rest gets ignored :D

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