Exitiumm Did you read my point about how the premium model has an inverse effect on quality?
Now every update is not free?
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.
- Edited
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.
- Free chapters - says it all, free yo read, no ads or stones needed
- Advanced chapters - cost 4 spirit stones or 30 second ad. Allows you to read ahead of the free chapters.
- 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)
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.
- Edited
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.
LtBeefy I unlocked 7 premium chapters of RTW. Now I don't have any of free chaps for the week. Would You still be trying to persuade me that I have free chaps?
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.
OldManDuotian so you chose to read ahead the free release rate. They promise 1 free new chapter a day. They never promised you'd get 1 free chapter a day of you read ahead into premium chapters.
From this alone seems like you never donated to read patreon chapters. I've donated to patreon and read 20 chapters ahead of a novel. And afterwards when ibdont donate I had to wait while they released 20 chapters before I could finally read for free again. It was my choice to read ahead of what was free. Just ad what you did now.
LtBeefy It is making an insurmountable mountain for new readers to catch up on. If you were reading a premium novel from day one then you can just keep up with it via the free ss or a few extra by buying them. Anyone who tries out a premium novel a month down the line though will suddenly hit a wall of about a hundred chapters locked off. This is an exaggeration for now, but as premium matures this could become a reality. There will be people who encounter this issue, and rather that spending a unreasonable amount of money (my opinion here, you are free to disagree) to unlock what could be hundreds of chapters, will instead just try to find other ways to continue reading i.e. dummy accounts or piracy. People are willing to pay for something if they think it is reasonable, that's why even though you can watch almost every movie for free online people still pay for movies, but that only holds true to a point.
- Edited
ImperfectInfinity how's that different from having 100 chapters locked behind patreon? Ever donate for btth? He had like 200 chapters locked behind patreon. It just that if you didn't donate or care to look at patreon you wouldn't know about those 200 chapters. Only difference here is everyone will now notice those chapters. So the situation you described of having hundred of chapters locked has happened before in many novels. Btth, de, war sovereign
LtBeefy Perhaps, though out side of Release that Witch (and even that is pushing it) I do not see any of the novels in the top 50 as quality writing. Granted there are a few that I have not given a chance yet, and quality is subjective so I get it if you disagree, but I do not think that this model encourages quality. When I was in college one of my professors asked the class to write a ten page essay, then cut it down to two, and I'll be damned if the two page essay wasn't better than the ten page one. With this method do you truly believe anyone who writes for Qidian would have the same revelation? Repetition plagues the webnovel industry, and I believe it to be for this exact reason.
My argument is that I have a moral opposition to the business model. Saying that it already exists in other mediums, it works, and it is not going away does not undermine that argument. I find it just as reprehensible in video games.
Perhaps you are right when it comes to the subscription model, though I have seen many a person on many a thread say that they would be willing to support such a service.