Ebu8b All but Wattpad look like they're successful sub businesses for completed ebooks, not web novels or translated web novels. Maybe they should consider it after there's a decent amount of stories fully translated. That could be huge. Imagine downloading your fave books like kindle unlim... I had that sub and I enjoyed it. Now about Wattpad premium, it does look successful, but they released in October 2017, which is only a few months ago, and its the only one I now know of that has a subscription for online web novels. Again, if I was a business in this industry, I'd back the universal, long-running, tried and tested system.

Ok to every other point you've raised.

I told you that I liked the subscription idea. I care about fair pay for translators, editors, and authors, so if the subscription idea works with that, then they should beta test it. However, I'm also saying that, I can understand why qidian chose this option over the sub. Premium makes sense if you look at other businesses in web novels.

      Ebu8b

      They don't care about their readers in their eyes we're cows milk =/

          WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL Before I rant, let me make it clear that I believe there is no such thing as a free lunch. Webnovel has been offering free spirit stones, chapters, etc. to build a following so that they could later make money off us. They had to build that following first, and now that they have done so they are moving into phase two, which they had planned all along. Fair enough. Businesses exist to make money; if anyone thought Webnovel was altruistically giving them stories to read and expecting nothing in return then they are not thinking clearly.

          In addition, I do not think that a boycott is the answer. Unless the majority of the user base agreed to a boycott, which just will not happen, it will not work, and just hurt the community. Boycotts of electronic IP rarely, if ever, work. No matter what you say, there will always be people willing to support the thing you are boycotting and undermine your protest.

          My issue with this situation is that the premium model uses nonrefundable, virtual currency usable solely on one website. There are two problems to this:

          One, spirit stones are basically monopoly money that costs real money. You are less likely to think about how much you are actually spending when what you are spending doesn't actually look like money. It is the same reason casinos use chips instead of cash and video games with micro-transactions have their own virtual currency. And if you ever want to back out of spending money on the spirit stones, you can't get your money back. They could theoretically just connect a bank account or credit card to your Webnovel account, but that would make people watch real money go away with each transaction, which people would be less willing to do.

          The second issue ties to the first. Has anyone read the forums where people reveal personal information like age? A large portion of users are teens, who may not know how to be financially responsible yet. You can argue this however you want, but it is a fact that the human brain does not finish developing its prefrontal cortex (the decision making part of the brain) until the age of about 25. You can be addicted to anything: drugs, alcohol, food, video games, gambling, and yes even reading. This is why companies always gear advertising to younger audiences to try gain brand loyalty early on.

          You can say that the premium model is not that expensive, or that any reasonable person won't lose a ton of money on it, but it could prey on a specific group of people rather viciously. Mobile game marketers have called these people 'whales.' Rather than the model in place, I would be interested in seeing a subscription service at a flat rate where you get to read ahead for every book. That would be a less predatory means to monetize in my opinion.

          Here is the reason I believe Patreon, though flawed, is still the better option to support translators in comparison to the current model. If I want to give anywhere from $1-100 a month to support my favorite translator on Patreon I can do that because everything is not tied to the word count the translator pumps out. Patreon offers more reader agency and doesn't price people out of keeping up with the story. The way the premium method works you are building up a larger and larger pile of locked up chapters each day, releasing one for free and adding two to the premium bank, making everyone else fall further and further behind.

          I feel tying profit to word count can be a problem for the actual quality too. From what I understand this pay model is similar to the model they use in China. I used to wonder why some webnovels were so tedious to read, going on for thousands of chapters with constant repetition and very little plot/character development from chapter to chapter. At first, I just chalked it up to cultural differences, but now I can clearly see why this happens. This payment method does not encourage quality, edited content. It just pushes the authors, translators, and editors to pump out as much as possible as quickly as possible without a lot of quality control. The more fluff you add to your novel the more it can be monetized under the pay per word model.

          In the end, if you work for Webnovel then defending the premium model is in your best interests, and no one can blame you for that, but there are better ways to monetize.

              ImperfectInfinity

              Cough I like the premium model, because I could frankly not care what happens as long as I'm able to read novels that have a good translation speed and quality.

              Also wth is this about inflation that Qidian is on about? Unless they are going to let spirit stones be traded for things other then chapters then Inflation is a bullshit excuse. A currency like this has no real value in the first place, it's like saying Bitcoin is worth 7900USD rn. No it isn't, it may cost 7900USD for a single Bitcoin, but is it actually valued at that price? No, it has almost no material value currently until more places begin to adopt Bitcoin and allow it to be used.

                  Exitiumm Inflation happens when there is too much currency among people, and more and more just keeps getting transferred to them.

                  In real life, when the government prints out too much of their currency, and uses it to pay their civil servants, pay for construction projects, etc, this money enters the public domain. The amount of money that gets transferred around will mostly remain constant, while the government continues printing out money, pumping it into the public domain. This is what is called hyperinflation.

                  Same thing on Webnovel. Qidian is currently giving SS for free and if there's no way to reduce the amount of SS among readers (through expiry) other than used for unlocking chapters, there will eventually be an inflation problem when users hoard their SS.

                  This happens in games too. Since 'currency' is dropped by mobs constantly, a tax or way to ensure users will always be poor is introduced to prevent eventual inflation.

                      ImperfectInfinity Patreon, though flawed, is still the better option to support translators in comparison to the current model

                      I don't know if you already knew it or not, but the premium share is 35% translator 35% editor 15% author 15% Qidian. So it's not only about the translator, beside that Patreon takes 35 cent + 2,9% (of the total pledge) of every pledge.

                      A self-made version of Patreon or a sub system would be better, especially that people then know better how much they spent.

                          Marksteele have you never donated to a patreon before? I have that problem all the time. Read 50 chapters ahead for a month donation. Don't donate next month and must wait till free releases catch up again.

                          Seems like u complaining cause u read ahead of what's free and expect to be able to read ahead for free with no consequences.

                              Ebu8b I knew they were using premium to pay everyone involved, but did not know the specific breakdown. I also mentioned right beforehand that I was in favor of the subscription model as well. I was just making a point in response @WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL 's argument that we need to support the translators somehow, making it sound like this was the only way. I do like the fact that the premium model spreads the wealth to the editor and author, but again, a subscription service would do the same and not encourage adding fluff to the stories.

                                N0xiety asking qidian to solve multi account problem. Like asking cancer to be cured. Day that because multi accounts is a problem that has and still does plague many online companies. Don't see qidian being able to solve a problem so many others have failed to do so.

                                And for people who say track ips, easy as h*'ll to get around that.

                                  Ebu8b premium scares people because they don't understand it and when they see any chapters on the site they want it free. Instead of the prem chapters being off site on patreon out of view of people those patreon chapters are now dangling in front of them. They are mad they aren't free cause they can now see them.

                                  Amway this is how I view web novels chapters. They have 3 types.

                                  1. Free chapters - says it all, free yo read, no ads or stones needed
                                  2. Advanced chapters - cost 4 spirit stones or 30 second ad. Allows you to read ahead of the free chapters.
                                  3. Premium chapters - formerly called patreon chapters now hosted on web novels. Allows you to read even further ahead the regular release. Cost 8-15 stones (hear it depends on chapter length)

                                      N0xiety would you rather have 1 ad at the start or the dam annoying ads other tlers do that pip up in the middle of the chapter. Take liberspark, they have dam ads appearing in the text as you read. I use ad blocker there cause of that. Atleast here once u watch the ad it's gone

                                          Ebu8b question to ask isn't how many premium chapters there are in rtw. But if rtw is still releasing the guaranteed 7 chapters free every week. As those 16 chapters are suppose to be the extra premium/patreon chapters. I'm letting rtw stockpile atm so idk if it has kept to the 7 free a week or not. But if it has idk why u mad when they keeping their promise.

                                              LtBeefy There is a slight difference between Patreon chapters and Premium chapters. Patreon chapters usually have a consistent number of chapters locked away at all times. As soon as one more gets added, the oldest one gets released for free. With Premium anywhere from two to three chapters get added to the locked away content every day, and only one is released for free. What this does is make the free readers fall further and further behind the Premium users every day. Nitpicky, I know, but there is a difference.

                                                  ImperfectInfinity premium isn't making readers fall behind. It's just making reader realize they were already behind if they weren't donating on patreon. Take rebirth of guardian. On patreon you could get like 20+ chapters ahead of current release. But if you didn't donate on patreon you wouldn't know you could be 20 chapters behind some people. Premium just taking those patreon stockpiles many people didn't know about and is now dangling juicy reading in front of them. And it makes people mad because they aren't use to seeing chapters but having to pay something for them. As to them chapters they see here are all free chapters.

                                                      ImperfectInfinity if all the tler promised people is 1 free chapter a day. If they are fulfilling that why does it matter they are releasing 2 premium chapters? They are giving for free what they said. 1 free chapter a day. Now, if tler isn't keep promise of the free chapters and releases all chapters as premium that's a different story.

                                                          LtBeefy Perhaps that is true; again, I was just making a point in response @WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL 's argument that we need to support the translators somehow, making it sound like this was the only way. I still maintain that a subscription model would be a less predatory means of monetization though. Then can even tie translator/editor/author bonuses to those that get a lot of traffic if you worry that it will disincentivize those that work harder to produce quality content. I also argue that tying those bonuses to quality rather than quantity the way the premium model does would make for a better reading experience.

                                                              I seriously dont get the point of mentioning inflation here..yes inflation happens when theres too much money in circulation at once resulting in increased prices and stuff..but we dont hv a same system here, real life money gets circulated around from one hand to another, they dont disappear..the more money produced the more economy inflates..here we hv a system of ss which we use to unlock chs ahead and after that they disappear, they dont move around from one person to another they are just used like a one time thing...
                                                              As an analogy of what qidian is doing here -- > You get paid in ur account by doing some job montly/daily etc but u dont use the money u save it but suddenly u get a phone call from the job --"Oh! it seems like u hvn't been using the money we hv paid u so we are taking them back..Hv a nice day" ..Qidian is not distributing the ss freely we do something to earn be it login,voting,invites etc and thats our pay for it and we are just saving it..how the hell that turns into hoarding resulting in inflation..SS are one time thing unlike real money, they are not the same so dont bring the issue of infaltion into this..Its just forcing us to spend the ss continuously even when we dont want to simply bcuz of the fear of expiration.

                                                              ImperfectInfinity novel quality drops readership drops. Thus quality is still important regardless.
                                                              As for saying it's predatory practice. You read chapters for free. It's just like any f2p game. Game is free to play but ifbyou want the ultra uber weapon you jave to pay for it. It's called business and the model isn't anything new or somethings that's going away.

                                                              Also subscription model can only work if there are enough subscribers to make up the volume. I mean you see all the hate over advance chapters being added here. Just imagine if they made it fully behind a subcruption. The outrage would be 100x times worse because all the free readers will be pissed as hell more than now.

                                                              Century want to do a subcruption model they have to ease the readers into it. And this premium model seems in my view a step in doing so. I won't be 2 surprised if in 6months to a year they add in addition to premium a premium+ subcruption kind of thing. But they have to wait for the heat of premium to die down and let people get use to it before they shake things up even more.

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