Hjkoi Ah, I must have remembered incorrectly. There were a few rants some time back lamenting the poor payout per read by KDP authors. It seems that the current payout structure is very similar to the SS system where KDP royalties are almost half a cent per 200 words. If early claims that Webnovel royalties are close to 50%, the authors here are better off by about double, but the subscription here was more than double the cost of KU. So either Webnovel was screwing over their authors, really messed up the distribution as you said, or early adopters of subscription on Webnovel were more likely to skim through content. Well, the price point was also high enough that people who weren't already paying were unlikely to subscribe.
Anyways, Webnovel will always be trying to find ways to gouge whales rather than seek more minnows. I would be surprised if they didn't spark outrage by introducing massive changes at least once a year.
People who want everything completely free will likely end up pirating content while using a decent adblocker.
Many companies, especially recently listed companies are more interested in performing well short term rather than long term. Fickle shareholders put pressure to get short term gains because they can always move their money to a company that will produce sort term gains rather than wait for long term gains. They believe they can jump ship before long term ramifications for short sightedness occur.