So, until recently the premium novels on this platform worked as follows: A certain number of chapters would be locked behind a pay wall, you could pay to unlock the chapter through Spirit Stones, or you could wait and the chapter would unlock automatically as new chapters came out. This allowed people who wanted to support their webnovel to pay SS to get early access to chapters, and even those who did not have money to spend could get SS through a daily check in. I think everyone on the platform should be aware of this already I am just stating the facts.

Currently however, the feature of a chapters unlocking on their own has been removed, so in order to continue reading the books you have no choice but to pay spirit stones. Let's first calculate how long it will take you to read the novel for free. For this example I would like to use Advent of the Archmage, a webnovel I was been reading when I discovered this change.

According to novelupdates.com the original Chinese version is completed with 769 chapters the first premium chapter starts at chapter 267. When you do your daily check in every day you get a random number of SS between 6 and 12(or something around that, I can't find the exact numbers listed anywhere.) Depending on you level you can also get a different amount of SS a day from voting power stones to increase a novels ranking. At most you only get 2 power stones a day ,according to the Book of Answers. This means that the net gain of SS for a free user ranges from 6-22. With 503 premium chapters ranging in price from 9-12 SS we are gonna shoot for the middle at 5282 SS for the total cost.

So it would take between 8 months and 2.5 years for free users to get enough SS to read all 503 premium chapters if they only focused on this one novel. Obviously, 2.5 years isn't realistic as you have to be abnormally unlucky and never vote to only get 6 SS a day, but best case scenario you still are gonna need 8 months of checking in and voting every single day.

How much to go ahead and read it now? Well that depends on what groups you buy the SS in. The most cost effective method, for just this novel, would be to buy one $50 package, one $20 and one $10 package. that would give you 100 bonus stones left over and would cost you $80 total.

So your option is to either spend a ton of money to read these novels, most of which are far below the quality of a typical printed novel, or spend an unacceptably long amount of time to read them. The "Advent of the Archmage" that I used in this example is actually pretty good for a webnovel, even if it is a little repetitive, but it is far, far from being an $80 value. I would at most spend $35, maybe $40, and even then begrudgingly.

Qidian needs to find a solution to this or I am done with this platform and I have already seen many people talking about leaving over these changes. I am not a free user either. I have bought SS before and don't mind spending money to read the webnovels I enjoy, but the cost has to be reasonable.

I would not mind paying monthly fees to have access to premium novels, or paying a certain amount to unlock all chapters in a novel. I want to support the content creators and translators, but I will not be taken advantage of.

Please qidian, fix this.

    Garlic_Sauce
    r/theydidthemath
    They not gonna fix or do anything about it
    They just gonna keep losing readers as they dont have a monopoly over the TL community that they want. Its either you just choose to read on a pirate or just stop reading from qidian all together while i personally choose the former as many before me and after me while other choose to stop reading from qidian. Lots of us saw this coming, its not something new
    Its qidians MO. Your only choice is to choose the pirate life or just stop reading from here

        Garlic_Sauce it is supposed to work that way their last beta whatever regarding premium you need to use your free stones to unlock anything even if a novel has been done for months still need to pay to unlock

            kevmaro

            Premium was webnovels idea.
            Novels no more unlocking a chapter per day is a push from the Qidian authors (the people who write them)

            Either way, it is too expensive and I'd rather read western books. And when people complain that it's short I laugh at their face, 'cause they have not fillers in them and also, there are some fantasy stories who span over 6+ books without any fillers

                Luta I really like reading about Eastern concepts and mythology, and there are alternate legal sources for Chinese webnovels, but the prices Webnovel.com (aka Qidian) is demanding are ridiculous. They try and disguise it by making the purchase through SS, but it is still an obvious rip-off.

                Traditional Western printed novels are very different format to webnovels and I have a hard time comparing them. Because webnovels are typically written as the author goes where as printed novels have to go through a lengthier processes to get published. Printed novels usually have higher quality as a result.

                  I agree with Garlic_Sauce statements, and here is my take on this.

                  I consider myself a power webnovel reader as I keep on average 20 novels in the library and read over 20 chapters daily depending on the novel, update frequency and my level of interest. If its high, I am likely to go much more once available. Now, I have reached a point whereby I am more or less forced to pay premium which I hate because i will not be able to enjoy the books that I like a lot. Now I do understand trying to make a living, having expenses etc. but I feel this is BEYOND HIGHWAY ROBBERY especially for those power readers. This is very applicable to novels with over 100 chapters and you are charging 3-11 SS per chapter - that's not fair. This is also related to novels that have on average over 1m readers daily. It's like Qidan gives you a lollipop to taste and once you lick it they yank it out of your mouth hard, hence you lose your teeth & then some. That's just nasty on a whole, when Qidan do this they are likely lose their key customers and turn off potential new customers. I try to do the calculation for a SS 2500+(750 bonus chapters) - USD 50, as the 50 SS won't cut it. In my country, should I proceed with this I would be paying an minimum cost of JAM$7,000 and this is not a monthly fee, nor its cheap because that can take care of some key expenses. Let's say I am a fan of one of the novels with over 1,000 chapters paying an minimum cost of 4 SS per chapter it goes very fast (4000 SS) and its just one novel which is not yet complete. What about other similar stories, this gets expensive very fast, before you even complete 10 chapters. What you are more or less doing is encouraging the power reader to spend is over $100 US for incomplete BOOK/S. This is not feasible for the customer wherever they are and I Repeat pretty costly.

                  Should Qidan insists on charging a fee for reading books then I think Qidan needs to provide an SS monthly, quarterly, semi-annual and annual flat rate which would be applied for all novels. Once that is paid, the power user should have access to those novel, chapters etc. regardless, as that fee is already covered. That way there is a balance and the price must be reasonable, I doubt if Qidan will lose at all if they do this. Do not turn off the customer, nor make them poorer than they already are.

                  Also, I am aware that at times you can lose your SS from lack of use. What happens then, lets say I decided to give myself a break from coming here for awhile eg. 1 - 2 months, reason I have to prep for exams. What happens especially when its valid for 90 days only? A part from the benefit of reading a chapter, what else can the SS cover for the reader?

                  Qidan needs to look at the big picture medium - long term especially if they wish to retain their power readers and obtain new customers. Come up with a solution that is more customer friendly than rip off friendly.

                  Long post that needed to be said. Have a good weekend.

                    phoenix_8888 yep, when you are talking about spending $80 or more on a book series, you would expect the books to be next level good. I love webnovels. They are a quick and easy read that is good for relaxing and stress relief, but they are not on the whole what I would call "next level good."

                    On top of that the SS business model is a blatant ripoff, meant to trick you into spending more money than you realise. You don't know when you are buying SS how much you are gonna need to unlock the whole book so you won't be spending your money efficiently. You also probably won't buy all at once because most people follow the webnovels as they are being published. So by the time you are done you don't even realise how much money you have sunk into all your novels.

                    Qidian set up this system in a shady way right from the start, but because the chapters unlocked on their own as new chapters came out most of us ignored it. Now they have moved things one step further and act like we won't notice.

                    A frog will let himself get boiled alive if the water is heated up gradually.

                      Just shocked as well. Im an SS stone buyer. i spend at least 1 max pckage per month. I dont mind unlocking chapters as well. I just started VMMORPG:Rebirth of the Legendary Guardian and was shocked that the unlocked chapters are only 100+ only. What the hell is this qidian? You got to be better than this

                        pr0fess0rx I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but i think you are already spending above what your average person would expect to pay on a monthly basis for webnovels. I feel that for that much you should be able to get your fill on webnovels without issue. The fact that even you are having trouble is worrying.

                          Garlic_Sauce you're just new. Everything has a way. By next week you'll probably be complaining with the lack of chapters rather than the lack of SS.

                            I could understand if there was a monthly premium membership that unlocked all chapters. I would pay $15 to $30 a month for that. I’m not shelling out $100+ per novel when I normally real 15 to 20 different novels at a time daily. I will just have to give up reading novels here. If I paid the prices they want for those novels. I would have to pay $1500 to $2000 to read them. That’s insane!!! I guess I need to find novels on other sites instead.

                            I started checking the novels, it seems that those that are in the top 100 are going premium and that is a shame. Also can you imagine telling someone that you pay over US$100 for this, they will laugh at you. Qidan should check out other sites in terms of cost - I looked at netflix annual fees - from a basic US$100 to premium US$150. Plus they retain a lot of subscriptions due to their service and cost. I think that is doable for the power reader as a yearly fee but the HUMONGOUS RIP OFF, is not acceptable. I also notice that for those that require premium there is indication of reduced comments.

                            Qidan get your act together. I really do not want to leave this site but I am not willing to pay those astronomical fees for incomplete books/webnovels. I do not even spend that amount on books for the year on a regular basis. Give us good justification for those costs. Granted the reader has a choice to come to this site, but the reader also has a choice to leave and discourage other people from coming here as well due to this very unfriendly feature. Who will be the bigger loser then?

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