CinnaSugar
CinnaSugar I misspoke, it was called "membership." Unlimited reading for a set price per month. Yes, WN had it, and the "subscription" type of setup appealed to me more than the "pay as you read" setup WN has been trying.
Thank you for clarifying that. Indeed, the Elite Membership program is not the same as the privilege service. The Elite Membership Subscription program was the one taken away by WN. But I don't think you know why it was removed. As MotivatedSloth said; it hurt the income of most authors.
As a platform, it was actually very profitable for WN because a lot of users had subscribed to the service, but on the other hand, it was not sustainable for the authors. With pay per chapter system, the coins that the users pay to read a novel are split between WN and the author of that novel only (I'm talking about net revenue here). Whereas with the subscription system, they had to split the income with all the other (contracted) authors on the platform. So for example, if novel A is popular, and a lot of readers subscribe to the subscription service because they want to read novel A, B, and C, but don't care about novels D, E, F, the authors of novel A, B, and C actually have to split the revenue from the subscription service with the authors of D, E, and F. They didn't think that's fair, and hence, WN decided to stop that system.
CinnaSugar This is a free reading app, yes it's entirely my will whether or not to grace an author with my money. Are you trying to shame the free users of webnovel? What's with the anger in this whole response #2? Seriously this app is free, unlocking chapters is free if you're willing to wait for it, and many, many people consume many of these webnovels without paying the authors/translators a single cent.
I'm not sure where you got the idea that it's a free reading app, but you are very mistaken. This is not a
free reading app.
I think MotivatedSloth said it best, it gives out freebies, and from these freebies, you can totally read for free, but it was never meant to be a free reading app. The problem is, too many users had taken advantage of those freebies. For example, they could even stock up those freebies to "purchase" a privilege service, which is at cross purpose of what that service is really meant for.
"many people consume many of these webnovels without paying the authors/translators a single cent."
This is the attitude that I don't get, which I called out on in my original response to you. Do you think consuming their work without paying a single cent is fair? If you consume something that isn't yours and not given to you fully for free, then it's only right that you pay for it. Do you expect the authors/translators will be okay with not earning any money for the works that they've spent time and effort on to create? And how do you think the money will come from if it wasn't from the paying readers? Ads? Ads don't generate enough to sustain the whole business.
And lol, I wasn't angry. I tend to be blunt. My response was merely a counterargument to yours, which, as I called out, didn't make sense. So, I guess, sorry that you perceived it differently.
CinnaSugar Then I guess the vast majority of WN users are theives.
Your words, not mine :)
CinnaSugar I'll be clearer here: Once a user decides to support an author by unlocking privileged chapters you cannot use the fast passes anymore. Sure on a different novel, but actually supporting your favorite authors means you can no longer unlock any chapters with the free passes.
Yes, I understand how the privilege service works. You can't unlock a privileged chapter with a fast pass. Which is how it should have been from the beginning. They should've never allowed readers to "purchase" privilege service and unlock the chapters with free SS.
Because, again, to put it bluntly:
Privilege, as the name suggests, has always been aimed for the privileged ones, or as per everyone else's term here; the whales. If one is privileged enough to be able to purchase the service, then one is privileged enough to afford the coins in order to unlock those chapters.
As said previously, WN gives out freebies from which a lot of readers had, unfortunately, exhaustively benefitted. With the free SS system before, one could just stock up free SS to "purchase" Privilege (up to 1300 SS, no problem), which was really at cross purposes with the initial point of the service, which again, was only meant for those who can really afford it.
The people that I threw shade at for lacking the decency and integrity? Exactly the people who could afford to buy SS/coins, but were still misusing the freebies because they refuse to spend real money on something that they're supposed to be paying for anyway and then got mad when the freebies were taken away from them, without realizing that they're part of the problem. I get it, people like free things, but if they keep relying on the free things... how do the creators make money then?
If you truly want to support your favorite authors and can afford it, purchase the coins. Those free SS/coins and fast passes don't give the authors anything.
CinnaSugar We will see I suppose. WN has gone through quite a few different approaches now and if this isn't what works I'm sure they'll change it again. 🤷 I guess you can attack me for saying this probably won't work, but you seem to be against the core of webnovel, which is that this is a free reading app.
Again, I don't know where you got this idea, but this is not a free reading app. And I don't know why you think that I'm against the idea of WN being a free reading app. Because I'm not; IF that was what Webnovel really is. But it isn't. It's a business, not a charity. And as much as we want them to exist, sadly, book faeries who will write those books for free for us don't exist. Authors and translators need to be paid for their works.
And I wasn't attacking you. I was just trying to clear all the logical fallacies in your original post.
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