You must see it from bussiness perspective.. supply and demand theory.. if the novel still high demand they will never lower their price. Take a look WW bussiness model based on monthly subcription, if WW in the future get more customer than Qi. I'm sure Qi will follow that bussiness model. So it depend to us.. which model bussiness more popular..
How can Qidian justify premium?
In my opinion, the actual problem is not the premium releases or prices. After all, it is our choice and we still get free 1 ch/day, which is much better than most translation sites which have avg 3ch/wk.
The actual problem are the "traps" set for premium user. By their strategy, once a premium user, always a premium user or leaver. They should atleast unlock chaps on individual basis(like from last ch we bought).
Water0202020 I don't think they would do that even if it's a good idea on its own.
I'm taking an example: "It's not easy to be a man after travelling to the future". This novel have a steady release rate of 7 chapters per week. Because the releasing chapters 1 per day, if you are at the latest available chapter, the new released chapter won't become a premium one. Since, according to your idea, they should unlock one chapter per day from where you've stopped reading. To illustrate, here is with numbers, let's say you're at the latest chapter available which is 190, the translator publish a new chapter the next day (191), you go to the novel and since you were at 190, the 191 which is premium for everyone else is free for you. So they don't get SS for people who keeps reading.
In the same way, if you say, one free chapter unless it's the latest, you'll create an intent for people to stop reading at chapter before the last one. Since they would have a free chapter everyday just before the latest chapter is released.
So this idea would work as long as the release rate is higher than or equal to 2 chapters per day. But this would also mean that QI would lose 50% of their SS per day (if it's only 2). In other word, they would give one premium chapter for free to readers that are at the latest chapter. It's a costly choice and I don't expect them to do it.
But then you have the mass released chapters exception and here your idea would be something QI might agree to do. Mass released chapter can be a great buffer and some novels have 50 to 100 premium chapters because of periodically mass released chapters and high release rate. If someone has already bought 50 premium chapters from a novel and there are still 20 premium chapters left to catch up, he would either need 50 weeks to be able to read another chapter or would need to buy the other 20 chapters left. In this particular case, people won't wait and would be compelled, at some point, to buy those chapters. And this is really a big problem because here, if you are a premium user, you only can stay premium or stop reading for a very long time.
Two possible solution for QI, they also make mass release for free user time to time reducing the time someone who already bought them have to wait for free chapters. Or they can release a premium chapter for free per day for those people (your idea). In the first case, it would be simple and they can do it now since it doesn't need to be programmed by the devs.
For the latter, it would mean programming a new functionality in the website so it would take time. However, it's better for QI to it this way. Since people would still have to buy the mass released chapters if they want to read ahead and would mean a less costly option.
However, people still give their SS for chapters and still buy them. If you think about it, QI doesn't feel the need to find a way to help people who are stuck in middle of mass released chapters. Even more, they would say that they give free SS every day through Power Stones, Ads and Check-ins and that people in this situation just need to buy their premium chapter with that and they need more, they would need to spend a little more for SS or just read something else.
That's why even if the basic idea is great, QI won't do it unless people move away from premium titles and don't spend any more SS on them.
S1w4n I'm only reading one novel due to the cost of spirit stones. Do the chapters that cost spirit stones ever become free? I understand supporting the translator but I feel like buying spirit stones is only supporting the website not the translator.
- Edited
BellRenjoji Premium chapters will slowly unlock and become free. Since Qidian doesn't have a way to track the free chapters being unlocked you can use novelupdates.com instead.
BellRenjoji they do eventually become free, you just have to wait for some time.
You don't understand, the chapters will become free in the future, how will they earn when the famous webnovels are free since there's no ads in unlocked and free chapters.
BellRenjoji it unlocks at a rate of 1 ch/day
a month later
akuma06 Yep this is my problem. I read a lot and I go through books extremely quickly. I was a premium user, but I simply can't afford it with 14 premium books. Keep in mind none of them were premium when I picked them up. Now I'm stuck waiting two to three months for the free chapters to catch up for some of the novels. They need to make a better system because it's simply way too costly for readers like me.
10 days later
ent5581 thank you for you patronage
ent5581 I read your title and when i saw the wall of text i just went straight into writing this comment. How do they justify it? Very easily. They own these webnovels and they have a monopoly, and since there is no possible way for the customers to get these webnovels from another source, they can do whatever they want and the customers will have to deal with it because they have no choice. I hope that answered your question, since i didn't bother reading your long post.
somehow i don't get your math.... pls explain that to me ...
50 Spirit stone cost ca. 1$ so .... 10 cost 0.20$ !!!
So how does the chapter with 10 Spirit Stones cost suddenly 0,70$ ?
I really don't get it and since i would like to publish here as well it would be nice if you could explain that to me!?!
SuperSilentSin
btw. i get every day around 12 free spirit stones and never bought some... I read right now only the newest chapters of shadow Hack and so i could amass 252 without paying anything at all...!!!!!
I want to give you something else to think about guys because u complain about the payment...
I checked a few days ago how many words the first Harry Potter book has and it was around 85k or something like that. Somewhere between 80k and 90k at least...
On this website that would only be enough for 40-45 chapters... I personally read often more than 50 chapters on this website so i start to think that the main problem is that it is freaking easy to read here. ;)
So back to the real thing...
The first Harry Potter book costs right now 20 years after its creation around 5 € and that are nearly 6$.
That is for the softcover. The hardcover costs 15,99€ or around 19$
So if we take a standard book it starts in the market with 14.99€ most of the time.
Lets say this book has as much words as the first harry potter...
So we have 19$ for lets say 45 chapters...
Then every chapter costs 0,42$ and if i follow my calculation every chapter on this website costs only 0.20$.
This calculation doesn't include free chapters or those you can read after watching an ad...
So guys i would say lets stop crying. We all want authors, who earn enough from this to make their living from writing, after all those guys will create in the long term better content as well!
And i say that someone who didn't even pay a single cent yet XD
No for real guys if you compare it, the prices are not unfair if the writer produces good qualities and no fillers...
The thing with disappearing spirit stones is not a good thing i think... but for both sides. If i bought for 50$ spirit stones stop reading for 2 month and they are all gone... i personally wouldn't come back then!
So qidian if u still do that pls change the system it is pretty unfair and maybe even illegal.
Thx for reading and what do you guys think...
SuperSilentSin the expiring stone is bonuses though right? They won't magically take away your paid spirit stone from what I understand.
Yeah, they unlock a chapter a day for free so I don't get why people complain because they cant have it all at the same time. Learn patience? Max spirit stones gained per day is around 30SS, enough for 3 premium chapters plus some leftover stones (sometimes).
I've never paid for a stone in my time here on Webnovel. And only read 2 premium novels now. Well, had to stop reading currently though but that's a different matter. =)
Saint as a matter of fact walmart sell the items so close to the price they buy it at in fact, the cookies as example at best they are only making 1 cent or less per box that you buy.
ent5581 i got a good solution for you, it may take up at most 5 minutes of your time. Just make dummy accounts. Send the invite link to different emails(to get invite bonus) you create and collect daily ss which total to 20-35 ss per day. I currently have 2 accounts works perfectly fine. Then again I only follow 4 premium chapters so I'm not effected as much. Also, there is another way to read chapters if interrsted message back. I can help you read chapters really easily.
SusshiRoll
LOL
you know that that is basically robbery?
and u not only rob qidian even worse is, you rob the authors!
If this were my website i would ban your ip or something like that...
To even do it this public :O
SuperSilentSin webnovel loves the traffic. They kinda make more money that way. I'm not gonna explain it.
SuperSilentSin we can't compare chinese novel with western Book.
The translation quality is not the same,
Like you said Harry Potter hardbook is more expensive because well ... Its a hardbook.
Qidian novel dont have hardbook (i think) so no print cost etc...
And there are no fu#@& filler in Harry Potter (or just à little?)
The Book dont describe the long and slender Magic cane of Harry Potter in 2 chapter like chinese novel.
Chinese web novel autor are paid on word count, so we have so many paragraph and chapter full of trash stuff.
So its Normal if chinese novel have more word and are cheaper than western Book.
Well worry for that. I saw so many people here who compare chinese and western book where we can't compare them.
Its just qidian have better mean for premium cost but they prefer eat some popcorn while readding our complaints.