Qidian cheating users from Spirit Stones
yasensn i like your comment, it made sense.
see, if stupid people keep buying spirit stones and inflating the price, then what would smart people do?
you do know that as a business company who's seeking a profit, qi better know when to stop increasing the price of spirit stones because at some point, they'll lose more money than they gain
This is madness!!!
Miya Greed and short-termism are rational. Companies don't need to plan for years ahead because their bonuses, their jobs depend on the results NOW. The people running Quidian are in no way dumber than you or me, they just don't care. The boom and bust economy is an inevitable part of capitalism because volatility brings profits. The name of the game is "cash and dash". Even if this webpage fails a year from now they can just move on to the next thing. There are more than enough sheep in the world to feed them for a long time....
yasensn i disagree. i believe short-sighted companies tend to be pushed out of the economy early on in the game. and while it's true that instant gratification might seems like the more appealing option for some, people could at least deduce the more beneficial option for themselves. for example, would any reasonable person be foolish enough to charge 15 spirit stones for a 200 word chapters?
Yes, they'll still have readers, but most people would lose interest in such an unfavorable transaction.
so it's wrong to say that qidian and their employees' incomes depend on what they can get from readers in a transient time scale, because that'll be too ephemeral.
Qi is smart enough to invest in the beginning for long time gain, that's why you don't see an abrupt increased in the cost of spirit stones per chapter. every new update happens gradually, otherwise there would be a public outcry and they would lose a lot of their loyal and potential customers.
(i.e. premium system is here, but all the old functions are still in effect: you can still view ads to read some of the novels, checking in for free spirit stones, and read free chapters for all novels. )
don't forget that "boom and bust" is inevitable in any economy, but that fluctuation can also results in profits and bankruptcy. and finally, when you start a business, i hope you don't start it with the mindset of profiting for a short period and then start something else because that'll be an awful waste of human resource, capital, and innovation. because starting a business is so difficult, businesses usually don't close unless they're in an extremely tight spot.
they aren't gonna be dumb enough to throw away a profitable future for a short term economic profit, and if they were that foolish, then they should've never invest in the project at all.
- Edited
I see that capitalism hating seem to be the in thing now. The name of your game is that "I don't know what I'm saying so I am going to quote very general things that happen in the world and apply it to wherever I deem fit". There's a phrase in Chinese that goes "there's nothing that hurts more than half-baked knowledge", and I do see it very clearly now.
First, I don't think you know how "cash and dash" works. I'll assume the number of chapters on this web to be 10, 000, and let's give them an arbitrary price of $30 each. If a company "cash and dash" after investing $300,000 into content, not to mention the money required to build the website, which I believe that you can perfectly tell how much effort they have put into it, the company's head, as well as the person who suggested it, must have had his head clamped in between lift doors at some point in his life.
Also, you don't seem to know how the web novel industry works. It is an industry that slowly builds up and profits over time as the number of readers increases over time, and the number of people going for the premium functions adds up. I don't see how Qidian can, quoting from you, "cash and dash" from the readers.
"Companies are not your friend. They don't like you, don't love you, don't care for you. They are legal entities that exist to make the maximum amount of profit of you that they can."
Such a skeptical point of view, and a grossly general statement. I don't disagree that companies are profit-driven, but just because they are profit-driven doesn't mean that they do not care for their customers. UNIQLO mass produces goods to provide decent quality clothes at an affordable price to customers. Are they profit-oriented? Of course. Do they not care about their customers? Well, you could always argue that everything is a marketing gimmick, but I don't think you can deny that customers benefit from it as well. Is that love and care? Perhaps not. But if the skepticism goes further, one can even say that parents are raising their kids as an investment in hopes that someone can pay for them in the future.
I don't know what country you are from, but you are biting at the very structure that you are benefitting from. If MacDonalds were to give out burgers for free, do you think that you would have MacDonalds all around you?
It takes both hands to clap. As I have said many times, people truly overestimate how much one can earn from ad revenue. So many people have said ad revenue is the key, but look at how many people have their AdBlock on. And if you were to spam advertisements, people would just lash out at you. Furthermore, Qidian has to pay the translator, author, and still profit sufficiently from this venture. Businesses are often give and take, they offer you some kind of benefit, but you can't expect to just receive it for free. True, you can say that other websites live off ad revenue, but which of them contributes a portion of their earning to the author and guarantees the translator a living? How many translators earn enough to guarantee you >7 chapters every week? (I believe that most of them have a day job, which I find respectable that they are doing it out of the goodwill of their hearts. But if the industry is to grow, we can't just depend solely on goodwill.) How many times have you seen the translation of your favorite novel being stopped due to lack of popularity or "life issues"? Qidian International is still in its growing phase so there are hiccups here and there, but I think it has quite a decent offering to its customers.
Take Return that Witch for an example, it has 726 free chapters at the moment, and if I am not mistaken, it still releases 7 chapters a week for non-premium readers. True, you might be lagging behind premium readers, but do consider the fact that you are paying next to nothing for it (there are no advertisements on the older chapters whatsoever), is it that unfair and greedy for Qidian to profit at least from the other 50 chapters it has locked?
Free spirit stones are practically worth nothing to QI. They earn nothing from it. It is a system in place for the sole purpose of benefitting the non-premium readers. The price of the chapters are scaled according to the content in each chapter, and translators and authors will profit from a royalty function in the future. Is it fair that authors who put more content into one chapter have their chapters valued the same as chapters as short as those from Bringing the Nation's Husband Home? Also, considering that the lock is only on the latest chapters and they will be unlocked at a matter of time, the profitability of each chapter will be severely limited by time as well.
Also, who do you think you are to label people as stupid? They buy spirit stones to support what an industry which they believe in and have a passion in. That's why people purchase Japanese light novels and mangas even when they don't necessarily know the language. That's why people donate at Kickstarters and fund businesses that interest them. Do they do it out of the goodwill of their heart? Perhaps so. But I think they believe that such actions in turn benefit them as well; translators and authors will continue producing novel chapters which they enjoy. Just because you suffer from a severe case of narrow-mindedness doesn't mean that others are the same as well.
I usually lurk in the forums, but your words really pissed me off. It is fine to have an opinion, but please do at least do some research to back up your words instead of throwing stuff here and there.
StarveCleric tl;dr
StarveCleric well said starve
Tnyhy news flash, i don't know if you took a look around the forum recently but there have been a lot of complains.
did you see anything get done? number of spirit stones lowered? more spirit stones for each check in?
being bitchy and/or a douche can only gets you so far. people need to know when to stop when they're ahead rather than walking forward while knowing there's a dead end.
why waste energy on a goal that'll never come to fruition?
Miya well, cant people have hope?
Autarch_GRIM hope is for the weak
also, you hope when there's a chance, you and i both know this premium system is here to stay
Miya but hope is what driving thd strong too.. lol.. yeah.. i don't think that it's that bad & I think qi will definitely make more favorable improvement in the future..
StarveCleric I just read this entire thread and saw so many different opinions based on nothing more then mis-information, dissatisfaction, anger, disdain,,ect. Your post on the other hand held such clarity that it penertated to the heart of the matter in one neat package. That is definitely something that I personally appreciate and I hope others will as well. I may not like premium all that much but I still get to read for free and that's what truly matters. I'm also sure any reader worth their salt is more then likely reading chapters of other novels at other places so not like you are really losing out. Most probably just really like the way the books are set up for their viewing pleasure and the amount of freebies QI gave us at the begining hence why they hate the idea of premium. TO be honest what other site puts outas many chapters a week as QI even if it was 7 chapters a week with every novel under the site it would still over pace the amount put out on any one website out there
Everyone and their mothers predicted that qidian would monetize chapters with their monopoly on the market after shafting wuxiaworld. Qidian operates in bad faith, so forcing their translators to now take down their patreons is nothing unexpected. To the translators who abandoned wuxiaworld to come to qidian for short term benefits, this is only a karmic end.
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Well if you fancy a good LOL about QI this is an answer to a post to a question about the 1st app and how bad it was due to over the top permissions and it being a data miner , you should love the comments about their web dev's and how godlike they are .. I'm so shocked after being told this, they can make any type of mistake ..ps i'm still missing stones and give screen pics and never got a reply back ( enjoy this post from one year ago via novel updates
screen pic one and a qi rep saying that how godlike their devs are
screen pic two yet again showing expired stones on a 2 days inc on a day when i used other stones to unlock TKA
yes their is a small overlap to get all the dates in the pics
Rokuman_24 i don't think they make wrong conclusion if they have a fact, but did they?
Rokuman_24 they aren't corrupt but they're super smart. it's named marketing strategy. But system errors like bug should be fixed, and any lost should be return by tracing record. why debate over it? just show a fact and record. probem solved. i'm here looking problem solving internet connection (-10000)
Rokuman_24 no...no...no... you get it wrong buddy. they scam our time and curiosity by letting lost stone unexplained. if it explain then it's still scam if i think they are lying. but they aren't so not at this moment. but for people who spent their money like fucet, my condolences.
what? not happy call a lawyer, a scammer always win because they're genius. still doesn't happy? poor you.
hahaha i like this show, can someone records it?