I dont see how discontinuing the existence of the elite membership is going to solve their issue. After I bought the elite I was able to go from reading 2 or 3 stories at a time to double that. Now that I've burnt my spirit stones into nothing, I'll be lucky to even read the 2 or 3 I was before. I can't be the only reader like that so I just don't see how this is more likely to help any authors. It also makes it less likely for me to pick up any new stories. I'd love to see any reasoning behind why this was the decided upon decision, because all it feels like is a way to wring our wallets for more for less.
【Important Announcement】Monthly Elite subscriptions adjustment
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Qidian should stop thinking webnovels can be sold like normal paperback books. Instead of selling overpriced books to few they should try to get as much people to read. And then put out some advantages if you support your favorite authors more.
I could see monthly subscription of about 15-20 euros that would give me ability to read everything but say 20 newest chapters of premium novels. And if I gifted 100 spirit stones to novel I could read those 20 newest chapters as well for week. This would give people ability to support novels they really like. (about two novels a week for free and with money if they wanted).
15 euros is standard for subscription libraries like this - see Netflix. Since I like reading I bought this costly premium subscription anyway but I couldn't recommend it to friends with good feelings. And I wouldn't be able to keep it running for whole year - max few months. As I see it Qidian right now caters for elite rich members in rich countries. Really weird for Chinese company and wired overall with this portfolio of services.
With ss like they are now - I want to read 10 premium novels - 2 chapters /day = 200ss/day = 6000ss/month = 1/10 of my monthly pay... rly?
I know I am from poor country but still..
snowonereadslikeme I know what you mean. I was wondering why all of my chapters suddenly were locked. Now i know why.
To say I am disappointed to find out you have discontinued the elite subscription through a forum post is a extreme understatement.
i am disappointed that they didn't sent any notification and only put here a post.
RecycleBin I found out when google sending me a mail telling me that my subscription was canceled.
To commemorate this fiasco, they should create an achievement badge: gotten screwed
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WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL this is really stupid. I can barely afford the 25$ for the subscription and you expect me to be able to pay to read as much as I do using ss? It would cost me likely over a hundred dollars a month to read everything I do.... this is seriously pissing me off. I only found out about this shit after my subscription expired like 30 min ago.... all I'm saying is if things change too much I will no longer be using this app. I will find another way to read.
They cant expect people to buy a 25€/month sub just for convenience. Obviously at this price people will count if it would be cheaper or not with spirit stones, so obviously it would decrease their revenue because the only people who bought this 25€ sub were people who spent more than 25€/month in ss. They should just remove free ss completely and offer 10€ sub which would be much more fair, effectively getting rid of "leechers" without having to make it extremely expensive for the paying customers
If they thing we pay to littel. They can make elite subscriptions in to lvl.
10 $ - 10 novels
20 $ - 25 novels
50 $ - All novels
I also can't afford if you want me to buy spirit stone more than 3000 SS to finish a novel. It's more expensive than we buy novel book at the book store.
The subscription that we had earlier is indeed not too cheap and not too expensive.
Beside if you want to stop this program, you should have replacement for it. It's too mean for your loyal reader to buy that much SS to finish a novel.
Until there is a replacement for the elite member, I won't buy any SS.
You dig your own grave by doing this. One by one loyal reader will leave webnovel. If you really respect us please come up with new program that not expensive for us to enjoy your apps.
The subscription model is better then SS in my opinion as it ultimately promotes readers to read a larger volume, variety, and quality of novels. With the SS model it locks users into a mode of only justifiably wanting to spend money for the novels they like best. QI is right that the most popular novels would likely make less with sub then with SS, but sub is better for the less popular novels and that promotes more translators in the community overall due to increased scope/volume of readership. QI should just be adjusting the allocation function to better align with the allocation of money from SS if they have an issue, not cancelling the program entirely. They have all the data for viewer and word counts to get the allocation as they want it.
Another turnoff with the SS model is how much it ends up costing. I don't know about other people but I am extremely put off when encountering a paywall of hundreds of chapters; whether that is due to not reading a novel for a while or picking a new one up. I can justify paying a premium for the latest chapters but not paying full price for chapters months old and am inclined to read, at least until caught up, from bootleg sites. Currently SS prices are far too expensive which when added up far surpass what you would spend for full priced books on Amazon. Even the subscription prices are already too high if you look at competitors such as Amazon's Kindle Unlimited or even alternative entertainment like Netflix both for $10/month.
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One thing to realise about this company is that our opinions don't matter.
Customers are not king, Webnovel is king. Money is king.
Their attitude on not responding to our comments of dissatisfaction, and the minimal amount of notifications tells us a lot about them. I have only noticed notifications on this forum and their Facebook page only because I was looking for information.
People who only interacted with this company/platform through the app were not notified with any notifications that were noticeable. And a lot of us only use the app. So I can understand the surprise and frustration when all books were suddenly locked.
So the question is, do we still want to keep reading through them? Just be prepared to get ripped off over and over if so. That is their attitude to us.
I will not recommend or invite anyone to use this service. I will actually dissuade them of that decision.
This company's attitude stinks. I'm also not sure if all these changes over time was a marketing ploy or not.
When people subscribed to elite there was an event to donate SS to novels for unused SS. Now they cancelled subscriptions but we don't have anymore SS to read, so we now need to buy more. Coincidence? Hmm.
WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL How do I make sure that the settings for Google play for the subscription is turned off?
I "Need" the elite subscription back as i found myself spending almost $50 reading two novels so the elite subscription makes the most sense to me
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I dont want to make so much noise here.
I JUST WANT MY ELITE MEMBERSHIP BACK.
Thank you.
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When will the elite subscription be back?
If it won’t I might as well stop using this app altogether...
Too bad I’ll never get to continue reading my favorite novels here... it’s not only a ripoff when using SS but it is also extremely inconvenient to have to unlock everytime you advance to the next chapter.
I reckon the management and the admins didn’t think this through thoroughly.
So disappointing...
If they take away the subscriptions permanently or raise it any higher than it already is then I'm totally done with these greedy people. These novels can be read on other sites without paying, its just the quality might be lower but at least I'll be saving money. You guys are way to greedy with your schemes.