I have to say that this donut idea was a genius move! may I copy you? 
Yep, I've had the same experience. Back when you could get into the Patreon program with 7k subs, I got promoted until I was at nearly 8k, then when I was removed I lost about 300 in a week, which slowly dripped away back down to about 7.1k. But even after the loss it was still great for me at the time because it meant I was getting $200 a month!
It just happened to me again just recently and now I'm closing in on 8.8k and a couple of weeks later it looks like it's stabilising at around 8.75k, which is only a loss of about 50, which is great compared to last time.
But even though I've just experienced a spike of 1500 new subs, my new updates aren't getting any more engagement than they were before, so I think people need to temper their expectations on that front, like others have pointed out, a whole lot of views and subs doesn't necessarily mean you'll get an equivalent number of likes and comments. Those two things in particular depend much more on the content itself.
takes off tinfoil hat
I may have been a bit reactionary.
I still don't like webtoons very much but for reasons that are completely separate from this discussion.
Ha, it's not just you, lots of people feel the same way, and this question about where they get their money from comes up constantly, and after what went down with Inkblazers, it's a perfectly reasonable one.
I for one love a good tin foil hat when it makes sense.
Me personally all i care about is people enjoying my webtoons and having fun with what i do.
Unless you get featured you can't expect to get rich off of these comic websites.
True both Line-Webtoon and Tapas has it's pros and cons though at the end of the day what really matters is your main reason for posting your comics.
For me one of my comics "I Love My Yandere Neko Girlfriend" just reached 9,124 Subs, but i'm not in a rush to reach 10,000 to make the $100 cut. It happens, when it happens.
Some people can take this as Line-Webtoon challenging us to grow more or as a discouragement.
And some other people like me don't mind either way.
It all depends on your perspective
I can probably test y'alls theory that "bad" comics seem to be getting an absurd amount of attention...
lemme go on webtoons, and upload a series of randomly colored pages, and see what happens to my view count there... agent moron on the way
alright, so I made this series, do not look it up on line webtoons as I don't want anyone from this thread boosting up it's stats
I wanna test line webtoons through ONLY the webtoon userbase, the test will be ruined if anyone from this thread looks at it (or at least my results wont come off right)
first page has been uploaded, episode title "don't read this", comic tells you "not to read this" and uploaded an image of a white blank canvis
if my views come up, either idiots or rebels clicked on my comic through reverse psychology, or something's fishy going on...
I intend to upload the same page with the same text for around 3-4 weeks maximum, every day.
I'll write some fancy graph or upload my results here for the first week at most
(edit: also changed my name to "don't subscribe to me)
I actually missed this comment. It's something I've noticed too, and it's left me scratching my head on more than one occasion.
But really, I think it probably does just come down to subjectivity. What you and I consider bad, tweens lap up like chocolate milk (that's what all the kids are drinking these days, right?)
I've seen some of what I would consider woeful artwork being praised as being the best on the site. I've seen webtoons failing just about every test of decent fiction writing being begged for in the comments section like it was crack. I don't think it's nefarious, I think it's just a case of young readers having poor taste and not knowing any better.
Some stories, for whatever reason, just hit the spot with the bulk of the regular Webtoons crowd, and once it all gets rolling, it can often start a snowball effect.
By contrast, on Youtube, you can go viral if you have something interesting to say that isn't being talked about in the mainstream, but presentation isn't actually all that important there.
I think it's all just about what the regular visitors to the site are looking for.
When you are the owner/artist, that's fine. When you have an artist on payroll, there is a lot more pressure.
So I gave a quick look to your library just to have a rough feel for how our tastes differ, and where they're similar. From my quick glance I can guess that you and I both tend to like comics that are on the "darker" end of the spectrum, where our tastes mainly differ is that the stuff that you read tends to look more polished and (for lack of a better word) mainstream, wheras the stuff that I read tends to be a bit more "quirky". I don't mean to put words in your mouth, and this is just a surface level first-impressions sort of analysis. I'm also pretty sure that I'm younger than you are? I remember you sharing your age in another thread.
I bring all of this up because, you're right, taste is subjective, what we find good is different in some ways and similar in others, and by extension of that logic, what we find bad must differ too.
That said I feel like whats happening on webtoons is more than just a situation of "kids have bad taste". They do. I had bad taste as a kid, I'm sure you did too, I think most people do. But speaking for myself, I still had reasons for liking some of that bad stuff I was interested in as a kid, and I imagine that kids with bad taste have reasons for liking the stuff they like too. When it comes to some of the things on webtoons, I feel like there is no reason that anyone would like it at all, regardless of taste, that still gets 1000's of views, and it gets those views quickly.
I had to put my tin-foil hat back on for this response, sorry. I'm interested in seeing the results of @Im_moron 's experiment.
Yeah i understand everyone has different reasons and ways they do their comics.
You have every right to be upset with Line-Webtoon i don't blame you. $100 isn't really a lot especially when you have to pay the artist as well.
Like i said it all depends on your reason for uploading and how you do things.
My view is a little different since my wife draws for me and i write the stories. So that's why i'm not in a rush.
I do feel for people who are depended on that money because it use to be a lot easier to make money on there now it's hard to even make $100 which isn't right
I don't want to be that guy but I have to say it. Instead of focusing your energy speculating and hypothesizing Webtoon's algorithm, just focus your time and energy plotting, writing and drawing your story.
There's no way we can figure out how Webtoon's work. If you really want to be featured, you need to play the game by looking at what's popular and create a comic with your own twist on it.
If it's something already featured, make something different.
Umm, I didn't read th whole discussion and I'm not sure if anyone else said it earlier or not.
idk where your comic was featured exactly but if it's on the front page of webtoon on either the app or the website then the numbers will make sense. There is a massive reader base on webtoon that doesn't go to the discover section at all, when a discover comic is featured on the front page baner the people who read only the featured content are more likely to check out your comic, it's huge exposure.
This happened to me too, gained 10k+ subsribers in a day all because my comic was featured on the front page, my likes and comments generally increased after that so I'm pretty sure those where all real. It's normal for stuff like likes/comments to be a lot less than your actual view and subscriber counts and the numbers you posted aren't all that weird honestly.
Try not to overthink this.