Piokilek Those authors, including yourself, are just being too greedy and only want instant success. You are only looking at the short term profits without thinking about future risks and wider consequences. You may have lost 50% of revenue in those 2 months that elite subscription was put into practice, but it always takes time to build profitable customers relationship. The longer the system is put into practice, the more amount of customers that will subscribe to the program and the more revenue you will get. Do you think those authors that signed with real publishing companies see their cash flowing in straightaway?
Having said that, I really have nothing against the idea of a Privilege system, and it's really up to you and WN how much you want to charge for it. I mean hey, it's your product and service. But as I have said timely and again, the way it is implemented is bad and it won't be sustainable in the long run.
First of all, the price is exorbitant (is there even an algorithm to back up this pricing strategy?) and customers don't really get anything equal in return. For the amount of money that they're asked to pay, they don't even get to read the advance chapters. The writing/translations/editing quality is not always top notch and moreover, the app is quite buggy. Yep, there I said it, there are just too many bugs that reduce the user experience. The amount of money you expect the customers to pay doesn't match the quality of product and service that you're offering. With the exorbitant price, you're price skimming. You price your goods at high price and you only need fewer sales and hope that you can bait enough whales in order to break even. This may work for a short duration of time, but honestly, do you really think it will support your revenue in the long run?
Second of all, it was advertised falsely. This was the biggest blow and has led to a LOT of aggrieved customers and bad reputation. And guess what? You won't make the sale if you have a bad reputation and customers don't trust you. Take me as an example, I have only been using this app for 2-3 months. I'm still considered a new customer compared to those who have been using this app/site for years. And in those 2-3 months that I've been using the app, I've spent a significant amount of money to buy SS. I am aware if all those other sites on which I can read the novels that I'm reading for free, but I respect intellectual property rights and I want to support the translators/editors for their hard works, so I chose to use this app and pay the money. But after only a few months, I've become very disappointed in how WN treats their customers with little to no respect. So they're losing me. And I'm sure I'm not the only paying customers they're losing.
I've now found another app, on which I can read the translated novels for free. So I'm going to read the translated novels there now. With the exception of a few translated novels which I'm still going to read here, because I like the translator, and some original novels that I'm still following here. But after that's done, I'm out.
Just like someone has posted above, if this company, including their contracted authors/translators don't respect their customers, why should the customers respect them?