N0xiety
Hmmmmm..... Kinda true...

Reinesse uhm, yes it was? They also promised that there will never be a paywall and told storys about cooperation, partnerships and that everything and all is for the community.
But a lot happened since spring '17.
Since you only joined mid '18 you missed a lot of drama. I think they let go of love 5 PR people since then and have ruined a very promising idea. From a readers perspective, just compare the Chinese webnovel to the Korean webtoons website. Both started in the west with unofficial fan translation and then developed their own official site to gather everything on one spot.
Yet the end result differs greatly.

If you are curious, everything started on the novelupdates forum: https://forum.novelupdates.com/threads/about-qidian-international-project.26804/

As for the topic on hand, I used to read a lot here. But nowadays I just collect the bonus SS and then binge a few chapters.
Find a few storys that are worth your time. Sadly quantity matters more for qidian than quality.

Vajrapani ooh~ interesting. thanks.

I'd happily pay if translators do they their job right but sadly some (maybe mostly) just MTL'd... change some few things then published the translated chapters.

Still love fan translations where they really took their time to translate, proof read, edit every chapters— even if it'd take a day or two— just so they could deliver the novel properly... I really find it insulting that some great novels are translated half-assed.

And Sometimes translator just go 'sick' or 'busy' if the novel isn't popular enough... :-( not that it's the translators fault since they probably won't get paid even they translate those but well... hate QI bc it kept translating more and more and more novels with no sign to resolve problem like these. Just dump the novel if it's not popular enough...

sorry for the rant

Valmar555

I dont read here. I write here. I wont give Qidian a single cent of my money, but I'm perfectly willing for them to offer to pay me for my writing

When webnovel first started out, it had potential. That is the only reason I'm on here. There was a huge conflict between the original sites and webnovel but webnovel was able to calm people down with certain promises that they clearly did not keep. So no, there isn't a point to staying on this site. I'm only here still because of my favorite novels IRAS and LOHP. I've been following them since chapter 1 on GT but now I'm about to give up on them too

Valmar555 for reading? not really. I stay because it keeps me informed on the actual industry.

I mean, if this is the industry standard, nice to know how shoddy things can get and how much of a cash grab it is. The profit sharing with translators is a great idea, but when you supersede the original author, it mars the idea completely. When you have the guts to pit yourselves against a US publisher but have no in-house QC as the editors are as freelanced as your translators, it makes me laugh.

And, of course, the crummy updates. All the bugs whenever they try something new just shows that things aren't well thought out or tested before they go live.

burntpotato At the beginning I was also in favour of it. Naver (the Korean equivalent to Qidian/Tencent) did an amazing job uniting the webtoon community and also helping newcomer's puplish their own stories on their site.
With Qidian bringing in some money and advertisment (it was also around this time that the 'the kings avatar' anime was airing) the readers were, in my opinion, sure to profit from increased amount of translated novels, faster releases and also a nice website/app to read it all on.
Previously many translators had their own website where they published their translations. You needed a website like novelupdates to even find something new and worthwhile to read.

But then it was only drama after drama.
They forced those who didn't want to join them to stop translating, claimed that wuxiaworld actually hasn't any rights to translate their storys, bought the gravitytales site without telling anyone, first introduced the bonus chapters (last 2-4 chapters of a novel cost 4 SS or an ad to read) evolved that to the premium system (with 1 daily free chapter -> the oldest premium chapter of the novel goes free) and then also stopped the free chapters.
And that's only the biggest 'scandals' I can think of right now.
They always got quite a lot of criticism but either didn't care, guessed that the people will stay nevertheless or already calculated that this slow transition is the only way to establish Webnovel the way they want.
If there were a paywall at the beginning webnovel would never have grown to it's current size.
I personally think it's a pity that qidian wasted so much potential. Instead of focusing on the good novels and translating them properly, they just cram everything they can in our faces and hope that somebody gives them money for it. They don't care about those who don't pay, about the translation quality, about the translators who care for their work, or all the other issues that trouble the community.

Reinesse lmao no. It was, for a time. They promised some shit and now they fucked the "old timers" up.