I even thought about how the coding shouldn't be so hard to do this, as the website looks at your unlock history already. It just has to look at your subscriber status as well. There could be two plans.

1) Account subscription for $15/month or $150/year. With some coding, there would be an additional button on the lock screen for subscribers to skip the lock screen on chapters. This will ensure that if the subscription is discontinued, the chapters readers haven't unlocked with spirit stones won't be able to be accessed.

2) Novel subscription for $1/month or $10/permanently. The same button could be used on that novel, or the lock screen could just be skipped for that novel.

This service would get rid of a lot of the negative vibes the spirit stone micro-transactions gets from website frequenters. Most people will spend the above amounts for a subscription, and even though the richer readers won't be giving as much money, the higher volume of subscribers will make up for it.

For example, A Valiant Life (https://www.webnovel.com/book/9067142506001505/A-Valiant-Life) has 4 million views. If only 5% go the subscription, that's $200,000.

What do you think guys? Do you think this would work and make sense for Qidian to do?

    Aristocrat613 Here is the only way I see Webnovel allowing this...
    1. The chapters unlocked via subscription=unlocked via watching ads if subscription expires (ad unlocks expire after a short time, so you have to watch the ad again or pay SS)
    2. Subscriptions are by Novel, and are either $5/month or $20/Volume (the volume variation does not expire)

    I would like what you said, but based on how Webnovel is, that ain't happening....
    .;,;.

    Aristocrat613 how foolish. The true menace to our pockets is the free ss! If we get ride of those dastardly spirit stones that clog up this virtual economy due to its absolute value of zero, then everyone would be happier. The answer is not to establish a subscription, it is to eliminate the free ss!

      Dontlookdown

      Dontlookdown how foolish. The true menace to our pockets is the free ss! If we get ride of those dastardly spirit stones that clog up this virtual economy due to its absolute value of zero, then everyone would be happier. The answer is not to establish a subscription, it is to eliminate the free ss!

      lol are you crazy if they stopped free ss then 80% of readers would never come back myself included how can you expect people to spend $100+ to read a web novel upto current point or $200+ for a completed novel take mmorpg for example avg ss for a chap is 12 756 locked chapters so just over 9k ss like 9.04 would cost $148 now imagine a 1500 chap novel or a 2k chap novel or 3k your looking at $2-300 for a single novel validate spending that much for a novel and ill agree to remove free ss frankly id rather drop 2 novels and buy a console with the money i would save or maybe drop 4 novels and buy a new pc its just ridiculous

        Aristocrat613
        There's a very big flaw in your idea. Views does not equal total readers. A book gets a view each time someone opens the novel. Most views will come from readers that read the daily updates, as opposed to binge reading, which would only count as 1 view.
        So for the novel you used as an example with 4 million views and 438 chapters? Chances are it really only has 10,000 regular readers. Maybe 20,000 if we consider that the novel updates fast, so many readers will read 2 to 3 chapters at once, which would count as a single view.
        Let's use the higher number. If we assume your 5% number, (Which honestly seems high to me, but I have no idea what % of readers currently pay to unlock chapters as is. I imagine it's low though.) then the math comes out to approximately 1,000 paying subscribers. So about $1,000 a month, which isn't a lot.
        Now, these are all just complete guesses on both our parts. Maybe the numbers are much higher. I wouldn't know, but I'd imagine webnovel picked the most profitable model out of all the ones they've tested in China on the parent site.
        All that being said, I do like the idea of completed novels going on sale for a fixed price. I suppose incomplete novels could do the same, but then the reader would have to trust the author to finish it, which is kind of unreliable (like early access games).

          neluid i was half joking, but i do believe free ss are a problem. I know this sounds like im either a paid mole or just retarded, but i do stand by it.

            SnoozySloth fun thing is this type of Model was laughed upon being scaming in one of the first novels to go premium (something about lucky gene)

              Dontlookdown this actually the answer, if there is no more free SS, maybe whale reduce 5-10%, sharks 40-30%, little fish gone more than half and forced WN to lower price or even give a lot free chapters, like in the beginning

              yaayyy

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