Gamblejay But... Amazon is around, so it does not make any sense? Would be like someone complaining about a long flight, and you are like "well you would be in for a rude awakening if there were no planes and had to walk the entire way". It is pointless. Argue from the actual reality.
Zogarth1337
- Dec 12, 2020
- Joined Nov 24, 2017
bachingchung But... but I need to know if the thing is 100.000.000.000.000.000 km away or 100.000.000.000.000.000 miles.
CKtalon How do we, as readers, know the difference though? I have bought spirit stones, and I naturally also get free ones, so when do I actually pay with the "free" ones, that do not benefit the translator/author, and when do i use the ones who benefit?
Gamblejay The thing is, it is not sure we will actually see a price drop if it does not work properly. And the longer a system is in place, the harder it is to change it. If they shift to a subscription model now, it would not require much, but if they do it years down the line, people who have bought a lot of stones throughout that period may feel like they have been "cheated", which is never good press. Also, never once have I insinuated that they should not make money, they should, but though a reasonable model.
Also, when I talk about the west, i talk about the western market of online entertainment. I am mainly basing my opinion on having worked as a business consultant with several companies, and many have had trouble with their business models and trying to monetize. The best solution is normally to try and create a model to catch as many as possible. The current model is one where people like me (and you i assume), are the only viable customers as we can afford it, but many with low income/students (who is a large part of their market, as it is mainly young people reading), wont be able to afford it. You normally put people into 3 customer groups, who can roughly be translated to low, medium, and high revenue costumers (and then a 4th who never buy anything). With the current Qidan model, they are only appealing to the high revenue portion, which is often less than 1% of the customers. A way many companies gets around this, is for example to have multiple tiers of subscriptions, or offer many different "products" to accompany the main service (mainly seen in games). Qidan could easily do something similar, and I reckon they could even earn more than they currently do. They could keep all current SS systems, and then make an optional subscription of several tiers. For example, lets say 3 tiers of 5/10/15, where 5 gives you a certain number of chapters/spirit stones each day, and some additional vanity, like a badge on the forums/comment section, or the like. 10 to give even more chapters/SS and give a higher tier badge, along with additional energy stones and/or Power Stones. 15 bucks could then give unlimited reading, and an even higher tier badge along with the same/even more extra energy/power stones. They could then even in addition to that, add some vanity items, offer to sell complete e-books (basically just the exact same novels, but re-branded as an E-book, and even physical copies could be sold. These things would cost very little with the main product (the novel), already made.
It is possible that with the current system, some of the heavy readers (like myself), may spend 100+ dollars a month down the line, but those who tend to have that amount of some, also tend to have less income. Also, even those who can actually afford to pay that much, most likely wont as they simply can't justify it to themselves.
Gamblejay I am personally staying because I actually care, and want the webnovel industry to succeed. And with the current way that Qidan is doing it, I honestly doubt it will. I am appalled that they did not just make a subscription system of some kind, and instead made this mobile-like micro-transaction system. This is the western market, not China, and we have come to accept subscription services, but there is still heavy resistance to a system like Qidans. A lot of people do like the stories, and they do like the quality, but they don't like the pricing. And, once again, Qidans main competitor is still not western novels, or even WW, but piracy. The more difficult/expensive they make the legitimate system of acquiring the novels, the more people will choose to read elsewhere. People want to keep up with the novels, and they will find ways to do it, be it piracy, multiple accounts, sharing chapters etc. I don't believe that charging 15 bucks a month wont lead to a sustainable business. I would be willing to pay that. But I am not willing to pay 15 bucks a novel per month to keep up with. That value proposition is simply preposterous. Can I afford it? Yes, Can I justify spending that much on it? No.
I have bought a number of stones already to get that bonus in, and had 10k+, but with the way things are going, it is when I run out of SS and can't keep up with the novels anymore, I will have to turn to alternative sources or simply stop reading all together, as the value proposition is simply horrible. It will cost in the 3 digits to simply keep up with novels, and if you want to read a novel that has been premium for a long time, it will cost even more. Qidans system is just not made for the western market, and will only end up pushing people to aggregaters. This is not China with the great firewall, but a market where many industries already battle piracy, and again and again, the best weapon against piracy is simply to offer a superior service for a reasonable price. There is a reason why so many people bother to subscribe to Netflix or Spotify despite the ease of simple pirating it; it is simply easier to pay 10/15 bucks a month for the convenience. Now, if these same services pushed their prices to 100 dollars+ a month? They would die out in no time. Qidans biggest direct competitor is pirating of their novels, something it seems they don't quite understand. And these pirate sites will only improve over time, while Qidan is only getting more and more expensive to use.
Zongheng novel, no they can't. It is not published by them so they don't have the rights to the novel. I am not sure, but you have a better chance if you ask on the WW or Volaire forums or something like that. NovelUpdates forum would be the most obvious place. I know that WW got some agreements with Zongheng already, and some other sites may have too.
Geass11797 With that same example, you could also just wait a year or two, and many novels would get the chapters released anyway. You underestimate the addicting nature of daily updates on novels. Plenty of people have an HBO subscription for 15 bucks a month, and only watch 1 or 2 shows that update weekly. A smarter decision would be to just wait until the current seasons are over, subscribe for 1 month and binge watch all the series you are interested in. But few people do that.
Same thing here. People are complaining because they want to read the newest chapters as they get released, and not wait and amass the free chapter releases. I actually think that compared to other platforms like Kindle Unlimited or Netflix, Webnovel.com is actually more suitable for a subscription system due to the nature of their releases. People want the newest releases, and in this day and age they will get it no matter what. I can afford to pay whatever Qidan throws at us, but like many others, I have a limit to what value i assign my novel reading hobby, and the current system will exceed that price with more novels going premium. And at that point people will seek out alternatives, and those alternatives are pirate sites. Pirate sites, that with Qidan will grow in quality and become more competitive as their "services" get better, while Webnovel.com only gets more expensive.
This is not even getting into the psychological aspect of the spirit stones and having to make repeat purchases. A subscription is in many households a kind of throw and forget kind of thing. You just sign it up, and it keeps ticking every month, and you stop thinking about it. There is a reason why nearly no one bothers to look into if they can get many monthly services like mobile subscriptions, insurances, data plans etc., cheaper, and a reason why games like WoW has a staggering amount of people who are subscribed but never play.
Screed It had a problem. Look at recent releases. Zen got help from Volaire and others it seems, and they are releasing quite a lot of chapters now to finish the novel as there is not much left. They are wanting to finish it around the same time as DE.
N0xiety Not gonna flame, but your reading speed must be quite slow, or you expect every novel to have 14 chapters a week. A lot of novels only update a couple of times a week, just in my library I got ST which is irregular as hell, IRS which is like a chapter a day, Epoch of Twillight, which even more infrequent, NEET, FMC, Reverend Insanity, and that is only a couple of them who update barely a chapter a day, if even that.
Wolfsbain You should read it at WW where the official translation is, and not the version on Qidan that they ripped off them.
WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL Have you considered simply adopting a subscription plan, akin to Netflix/Spotify, and many other e-book and audiobook sites? The whole spirit stone system is not used much in the west for a good reason. With the current pricing structure, and more novels going premium, I could easily see myself spend upwards of 3 digits a month just to keep up, at which point I will simply either stop or find free alternatives. Which is exactly your main competition. Free pirate sites will always be your main competitor, and the more you charge people, the more will simply leave. The reason why Netflix/HBO/xxx has so many subscribers is because they offer a better product and convenience compared to simply pirating it. There is a reason why they charge 10-15 dollars, because if they charged more, they lose a lot of the "mid level" customers. Something you will end up doing down the line. Currently it is still fine, but what about when more and more go premium? It is simply not a sustainable business model within the western market.
Millman97 Couple of assumptions there I don't quite agree with. First of all, books in paper form is a failing market that is slowing down, and e-readers where the books are way cheaper is becoming more prevalent. Second point is the direct comparison between a published book and a Qidan novel. These novels in quality, are far FAR lower in quality and often filled with repetition and other redundant elements, partly due to their format where many read them over time, but also just to pad the length. A published book, you often want to reduce the length if possible, to keep the quality up. In literature the saying "kill your darlings" is often used, while with many Qidan novels it would instead be "make you darling into a massive filler and pad out your novel for more words".
The entire "word count = content" is frankly silly. Again, i must reiterate that I have nothing against spending money on my hobby, but paying in the 3 digits for reading web novels a month is frankly far too much, and not at all competitive with other entertainment. You also miss the point that with current prices, many are just scared away because they don't want to/can't afford it, but they still wanna read their favourite novels, so they either make a new account or something else to circumvent the system, or they just go to another website where they can read all the novels for free.
GregLuck Which is INSANELY expensive to pay 10$ for a novel per month. And some are even more expensive. Library of Heaven's Path is 12 stones per chapter nearly every time, some more, some slightly less, but average around 12. That is 0.24 cents per chapter, or 4 chapters for a dollar more or less. With 30 days a month and 14 chapters a week that is 60 chapters for a grand total of 15 dollars a month. For one novel. As you said, then you can read 1 novel free, but think about how many novels tend to keep up with. Just on the super popular ones, RTW, Library, TKA. If we assume RTW and TKA are both 10 dollars a month as you said, and you get around 15 dollars worth of novel reading every month on average, you are still paying 20 bucks to keep up with 3 novels. If you read any more novels more than that, you pay 10 bucks per novel. I reckon many people here keep up with many novels spread across multiple sites, and I want them to imagine if all of them were on Qidan. I reckon many would have upwards of 10+. That could easily be 100 dollars a month for reading on Qidan. And I am not even gonna bother comparing them to Netflix or any of the other competitors in entertainment, but their biggest competitor: Pirate sites. If people really need to pay 10 or 15 dollars a month to keep úp with a their favourite novel, something many even feel addicting, do you honestly think that they won't just say "fuck it" and go pirate it. Reading on Webnovel.com is better than those sites, so the product offered is better, but is it 15 dollars a novel better?
I honestly don't get why a subscription system is not considered. Add a sub, 15 dollars a month, gives unlimited spirit stones/makes chapters cost nothing to unlock. I am not in a bad financial situation myself, and have nothing against spending money on the system (currently got 11k spirit stones that I bought), but if novels keep going premium, it will reach a point where I simply can't justify it. Novel reading is borderline my only hobby at this point, and If I had to buy every single chapter with spirit stones, I could easily see myself having to spend 150 dollars a month with more novels coming here/going premium. And at that point, I may as well just pirate it. I reckon the pirate sites will also only get better with due time, and we will reach a state like the Manga industry where authors/translators get close to nothing.
Oxy Comparing web novels to published books is meaningless. They are very different. The quality is significantly lower in general (not saying all, many surpass a great deal of published books, and others are at levels where no publisher would accept it). Would be like saying that Spotify charging 1 dollar for every song heard is totally fine, because an album is way more expensive per song. Also, the amount of free stones only goes that far, a chapter takes less than 10 min to read even for a fairly slow reader, which means 20-30 min of free reading a day. While that does not "fine", it must be remembered what they are competing with here, which is free alternatives. For some people, they don't read more than half an hour a day, so all is good for them, but others who read a lot for whatever reason, it can quickly get expensive. Which is why I should a subscription option would be good to add upon the current system. I doubt many would say that the current "value" offered by Webnovel/Qidan is above services such as Netflix, so a monthly sub of 10 or 15 dollars for unlimited access seems fair. Chances are that it wont even have a negative impact on the money made for Qidan, as many just "sub and forget" to services. Adding options like a 12 month sub for a discount could make them earn even more. I would subscribe if it was an option, even if I won't actually reach the breaking point where it would be cheaper than just using spirit stones, just because i prefer services with exact pricing where I know exactly how much I am paying, and not these small constant micro transactions.
Something I posted from another thread, but relevant here:
So with chapters costing 12 spirit stones, they expect people to pay 24 cents for every chapter from now on (assuming 500 for 10 usd, which it will be when "bonus" stones is gone"). That is 1 dollar for 4 chapters worth of content. With just 1 chapter daily that is 7½ dollars a month PER MONTH, PER NOVEL. 15 dollars for 2 novels, which is the same as a netflix/spotify/wow sub/most other subs. This is damn expensive. I would have nothing against if there was a sub option for like 10/15 dollars a month (max) for unlimited access, but this is too much. Heaven's path alone with 14 chapters a week will cost 15 dollars a month to read. And it is not like I have a lot against spending moneys on my hobbies, I currently have 10k+ spirit stones, but this price is just too much.
So with chapters costing 12 spirit stones for Library of Heaven's Path, they expect people to pay 24 cents for every chapter from now on (assuming 500 spirit stones for 10 USD, which it will be when "bonus" stones from purchase is gone). That is 1 dollar for 4 chapters worth of content. With just 1 chapter daily that is 7½ dollars a month, PER NOVEL. 15 dollars for 2 novels, which is the same as a netflix/spotify/wow sub/most other subs. This is damn expensive. I would have nothing against if there was a sub option for like 10/15 dollars a month (max) for unlimited access, but this is too much. Heaven's path alone with 14 chapters a week will cost 15 dollars a month to read. And it is not like I have a lot against spending moneys on my hobbies, I currently have 10k+ spirit stones, but this price is just too much. With it being that high, chances are way more people will be scared off and just go to other free alternatives. While the reading experience here is the best, going down on the quality and save 15 bucks a month will surely convince many.