Webnovel.Forum

klmorgan
Exploitative abuse:
This type occurs whereby a dominant firm using dominant position to exploit consumers without losing them through conduct like price increase and production limitation. There is no legal definition of ‘exploitative abuse’ under Article 102 but it can be taken as ‘any conduct that directly causes harm to the customers of the dominant undertaking’. Without barriers to entry, the market is likely to be self-corrected by competition because monopoly profits will attract new competitors to enter the market. However, the Guidance does suggest that the Commission will intervene where the conduct is directly exploitative of consumers (for example, charging excessively high prices).

Excessive price:
Price set significantly above the competitive level. Article 102 explicitly bans unfair pricing which has been understood as to cover the excessive pricing. The charged price must be excessive and unfair to be abusive. The test used was stated in the United Brands case that whether the charged price has no reasonable relation to the economic value of the product supplied and exceeds what the dominant undertaking would have obtained in a normal and sufficiently competitive market.

Fiona_Singer The thing is the chapters don't expire in the privilege. Even if you don't repurchase the privilege, you'll still get to read the chapters you purchased last month before the normal releases catch up. There will be a section bellow the privilege button that says "Privilege chapters purchased" highlighted in orange which you can read.

and no, if you've paid for a chapter with SS. It stays unlocked.

KingDerp I have read your other posts. We have similar provision in Australia plus I had a brief look at the EU laws so I could understand what you were arguing (but I am not an expert in this area of law).
Yes it is designed to protect consumers for exploitation, but it also protects companies who realise consumers may have been misled if the are proactive. Webnovel were when they realise the issue. They provide a rebate of a percentage of the cost for the privilege access without you being downgraded and reworked the disclosure information to be clearer and installed a warning.
Your complaint is more that you have an interpretation aand as it was not delivered so it is exploitive behaviour. That is not exploitive behaviour, it is simply a difference of opinion.
It was always clear to me that privilege access was to see chapters titles in advance of that released to people without that access and you had to pay for the chapters themselves. Plus it was clear that it was for a specified time frame.
Stop, look at the situation and consider have they acted to protect consumers. They have. Just because you do not like the cost do not complain, as authors have some role in this. Do you blames them as being exploitive. I would guess not.

klmorgan I forgot to add, paying a premium price for something over and above the normal is not exploitive. You get something they don't. The logic would be premium economy, business and first class seating on planes is exploitive. You get more than economy so it is not illegal.

I have the same problems.. It is frustating now.. I thought I just waste my money. I dont read anything about it will be open only for such period.. Can we get out stone back????

Like many people here I really love to read the books. So I purchased the privilege to stay reading books 50 ahead. This I have zero problem with. Now I find out that I will not be staying 50 chapters ahead. The system is set up to screw you over by over to re-purchase "Privilege" again after 30 days plus the additional stones per chapter. Come on really you are going to actively screw over your customers monthly? There is absolutely zero chance I will repurchase into the privilege status and just wait to get screwed over again. Please fix this issues and yes it is a MAJOR FREAKING ISSUE.

1) Purchase into the "Privilege" status for a book translation
2) This should set the person for that book at a +Number of chapter privilege ongoing
3) Absolutely not screw over your customer and drop there privilege purchase to repurchase the same thing monthly.

Sticker I can see your point. You do not loose the chapters you had accessed at the end of the month if you do not rebut, it is just keeps ahead.

Question if you look at Privilege as being like a Patron account where you could get early access for a time to chapters does it change your view? That is how I interpreted the system when I read the information.

BigMike72 this issue is with the bullshit taking place. I've filed a complaint with my countries ombusdman because this app at this point is highly illegal. It border lines theft. When i first purchased my privilege package it stated that i would have one months access. It didnt state that my privileges would reset after the last day of the month. The fact that they haven't provided customer support makes things worse. I'm currently waiting for a response from the ombudsman.

Either way im going back to other sites like wuxiaworld for my reading fix. Would rather support independants then greed.

Rosie32 I can see your point, and hopefully it is an easy for for Webnovel to keep you as a reader happy and authors, who work hard to produce their stories, happy and rights protected.

Maybe have a proactive suggestion for Webnovel to look at?

klmorgan I appreciate your reply to my post. Simply put the Patron system should stay on Patron site not here. The way the system is setup at the moment is absolutely horrible to say the least. I have spent quite a bit of cash on the site because I like the site it was fair. With the new system you implemented something that is simplest from a customer perspective. No one in their right mind wants to keep paying for the same thing over and over.
The system should run like the following:
1: Chose to purchase privilege for a book up to 50 chapters
2: Customer that purchased the privilege Status at the current additional number of chapters
3: Example: Customer "A" purchased 10 additional chapters. From that point on the customer will be 40 chapters behind the Author release stock going forward.
4: Example: Customer "B" purchased 50 additional chapters. From that point they are reading active releases from the Author at the same cost as normal purchases.

Please fix the system it is broken. Great idea horrible application of the concept.

Sticker I get where you are coming from and as a reader I can understand the frustration with it.
I seriously debated about the privilege system, and dipped my toes into it on one novel at 5 chapters ahead. I saw it as support for the author.
The frustrating thing as a reader is seeing novels with so many chapters there and knowing there release rate is how long at a level it would take to get there.
When I decided with my contracted novel to add privilege access I decided that there would be two levels, one half a week ahead and the other a week. Given in the first weekend of the month I release bonus chapters the worst a privilege access reader will have to wait to see new chapters is 6 days if they opt in the following month not to renew their privilege access.
But I each month my privilege access readers will have something for them alone, if they want to take it up. This month I gave them an email address to use and towards the end of the month the will get the chance to read the synopsis for my new Novel and some chapters from it. Next month it will be something else.
I looked at Patron and decided that as an original author it was too messy to use but this is easier for me, who is time poor as I have to work full time and dreams of becoming a full time writer to manage as I only have the one platform to manage.

Moon_Rise yes,i purchase a novel,not all chapter in one novel,but the case is i purchase it with my own money so why it is gone in my library.

BigMike72 In my experience, my chapters didn't backtrack as long as I've unlocked them. That way, at the end of the month, they can't lock it again and I wouldn't have to repurchase the same privilege chapters for the next month.

XOMatsumaeohana True, at least, that's what happened to me.

I do not know of a single person that ONLY reads one book on Webnovel. So I was trying to do some rough cost estimates to compare. See below:

Average Cost of Spirt Stones I purchase each time $19.99 Cost
Average total Spirt Stones I purchase each time 1250 Spirt Stones

Average Price of Book on the Market Price Today $5.95 Average Cost Per Book
Average # Chapters per book: 40 Chapters
Convert to Spirt Stones per Chapter: 15 Spirt Stones Per Chapter

Average cost of Spirt Stones per chapter on Webnovel: 12 Spirt Stones Per Chapter
Average # of chapters per Webnovel book "My Guess" 40 Chapters
Convert to Average reading cost Per Webnovel Book $4.80 Average Cost Per Book

Average Cost of Privilege Status Purchase Per Book 2500 Spit Stones
Cost Per Month Per Book Per Webnovel Prices $49.99 Cost

NOTE: Market Book chapters are on average more lengthy in size. Additionally assuming each book is 40 chapters average.

The repeat monthly costs of $49.99 is a horrendous problem for the consumers. Customers could maybe afford a one time per book expense of additional $49.99 but not monthly. This is my thought and rough math on this major issue. Please oh Please fix it because it is definitely NOT RIGHT.

I wanted to catch up with the chapters released for “Empress live stream” but found that all that was unlocked for me were the chapters I 1) already unlocked and 2) already read. Does privilege preview mean from when you last read or from the last chapter before privilege?