I planned on staying as a silent observer of this forum as I felt most of the comments already expressed my personal opinion quite strongly even, if I may add.. But I felt I had to give my 2 cents even though I'm not too sure if it'll make any difference at all as it looks like @WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL & @Webnovel_Staff is completely intent on ignoring their readers (albeit their consumers) completely..
Anyway, I just want to make a comparison just for the sake of it.. I'm an avid reader.. I spend probably more money on subscriptions and books than anything else (except maybe for my dogs).. I have one series that I follow in Kindle religiously which cost me approximately $10cdn a book (COMPLETED).. Although the series is not done, the author only release a book once a year so that's $10 a year and I got the first 5 books on discounted price.. All in all I spent less than $100cdn for 13 completed books (albeit the series not being done yet).. And I have other COMPLETED books for less than $5cdn..
Now let's go to Webnovel.. I spent almost $120cdn worth of SS to finish a novel.. Excessive?? Definitely!! So I actually felt that I should start considering other options (which I definitely have) for my binge reading even though I like quite a few number of novels here.. But then they introduced the subscription option.. And I thought $33cdn (it's not even $25 for us) is still a little too much but since Webnovel has 4 novels that I used to read free but Qidian decided to license and the translations moved here, and there are quite a few original novels that got me interested, that I should invest in this so I did.. But then out of the blue, without even notice or any form of communication except for a forum post, which I thankfully read even though I rarely go to forums and just happened to click on the forum post that one faithful day, imagine the disappontment I felt and I can bet all the money I spent on SS that probably all premium subscribers felt..
I will not say that I understand the authors point of view because after all I don't have facts and numbers to prove anything and can only rely on what Webnovel posted so I can only share my 2 cents from a consumer's point of view.. I know I myself will just finish my remaining SS before the Webnovel app is completely uninstalled in all of my devices.. I know my mere $33cdn is nothing in the scheme of things but imagine 20 users or more who previously had subscriptions, gone completely because of this 'smart' move.. I've already removed more than half of the novels in my library and sadly half of them are original works but Webnovel really left me with no other option.. Again, as stated by many already, it would have probably been okay and Webnovel could have probably continue with the excessive prices for SS without getting any backlash from anyone if they didnt introduced the premium subscription to anyone..
Okay my 2 cents was longer than I intended but at least I got my opinion out there.. Whether it will make a difference or not, who would know 😊