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Sep 2019

https://www.webtoons.com/en/notice/detail?noticeNo=1022&page=1188

So... I smell Line Webtoons started to hide episodes of old, completed featured series (originals) behind paywall. I expect more and more completed series to be treated the same, and (this might be a stretch) ongoing series which already have many episodes. Seems like Line Webtoons is becoming more and more alike with its korean counterpart. I heard Naver Webtoons had already put old episodes of some popular ongoing series behind paywall, such as The Sound of Your Heart, cmiiw.

I brought this up because I think this might provide new opportunity for us small creators. Why? Because when a lot of series has already put behind the paywall, more people will be actively start looking for other alternative source for free comics. Discover section (Canvas) is obvious choice. And they will start thinking Webtoon is no longer 100% free (minus ads) since the inception of coins, so... why not different apps? So both Canvas and Tapas creators will actually have chance to have increased readership from this. Just my ridiculous opinion though haha

So what do you think?

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    Sep '19
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    Oct '19
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Knowing webtoons (staff and readers), most likely they will focus on the canvas BIG series, those that had 1M likes (those on the 3 first pages show, if you search by likes).

If webtoons doesn't show our comic to be in the main page, i don't think it will help most of us in canvas. Some people here has commented, they got a huge boost of views/subs when webtoon for random reasons put their comics in the front page. We don't know what is that made them pick those series in the first place.

Don't think locking series behind a paywall will help canvas much. 'Losing' 10 series featured series will most likely benefit the top 10 series in Canvas, not the bottom ones. At least, that is true for genre comics. Comedy and Romance are the only ones that are being actively searched for in Canvas. Other then that, the only way to gain any substantial subs is being featured on the front page, and getting into the recommended list (which you cannot unless you are already somewhat big).
As for getting featured on the front page. Just follow the advice the webtoon itself is giving you: have a good story, adapt the episodes for phones, keep hammering those updates regularly.

There is also the possibility that it will lead more readers to turn to pirating, which could hurt the website since the traffic will go elsewhere.

I personally think the fact that the daily pass only unlocks an episode for 14 days is straight up bad. The single greatest aspect of a completed series is the ability to sit down and binge read an entire series. Unless a person is willing to pay "a lot" upfront, they can't do that now(just looking at girls of the wild which is over 200 episodes and considering it's about $.50 per ep that would cost over $100 to do a single binge read). I feel like people who like to reread series even if they unlock it daily, they will turn to pirating sites for future rereads. I could be wrong, but I imagine that is what will happen.

But what is worse than all this is how the system will alienate desktop users, because as far as I can tell, you can only use coins on the mobile apps.

I wonder why those series didn't move to featured section? In the past I've heard authors refused the offer to be featured because its hectic schedule reason and other reasons (e.g. still want to retain fanbase in other platforms), but what if some of them actually didn't get offer at all? Like Webtoons actually want them to stay on canvas, forever.

Wow I haven't thought about pirating stuff at all. That will make future webcomics landscape even more complicated, and yes I have seen websites pirating webtoons, lezhin and tapas comics, along with other japanese publishers...

There will be a lot of them I think, since many of them seem still very young with little patience...

I could be mistaken, but for example two of the top series on canvas (by likes) are Sarah's scribles (1st spot on likes) and Brutally Honest. Those are short 4 or 5 panels style , black and white random/slice of life humor episodes. I don't think webtoons staff cares about that format, they give preference to 40+ panels per episode series telling a long story. Now, maybe webtoon did offer them and they rejected, idk for sure.

There's another series "Lost in Translation", that Is gonna be featured on Original, but it still show up on canvas (number 3 by likes on canvas). with a message "Error. This story has been removed from webtoon canvas, and will be re-launched as a webtoon original". So...while it has been """removed""" it is still occupying the 3rd spot, taking that spot away from all the series that ARE active on canvas, that fact alone should tell you how Webtoons couldn't give a shit about canvas.

I'm up for supporting smaller creators, but I'm not for putting old comics behind a paywall. That's unfair to the consumer.

To be fair, tapas did the same thing when first implementing these systems onto their website (locking old comics that you used to be able to read for free behind paywalls)

Not to justify it being done or anything, just seems to be something to expect when it comes to these things.

As far as I know Brutally Honest is interesting: it once was in Featured, but because immigration reason it moved into Discover. Also those series had already established astounding amount of exposure in SNS, such as facebook and 9gag

That's actually the implicit reasoning behind "so... why not different apps?", since one factor that made webtoons stood out (at least in the eyes of people around me) was lack of locking system found in others. Now, not anymore~~~

Now I'm wondering what things would turn out if big traditional japanese publishers e.g shonen jump enter webcomics battlefield...

10 days later

I think webtoons is starting to become too money hungry. I get businesses need to make money but their already making lots of money they have to be making millions daily in ad revenue alone. They have fast passes now too so that's making them money. This just seems like a bad idea that will end up pissing readers off. The biggest thing webtoons has going for it is how reader friendly it is. That's why they are the biggest webcomic site around. I can only see this hurting them. Wish they'd do an update that's more creator friendly instead like letting canvas creators add music to episodes, being notified when you get subscribers or comments, an actual useful graph that shows you your comic growth over time, instead of this.

8 days later

Well what a let down, I wanted to reread Girl of the Wild's because I really liked it and wanted to read something that was somehow long and in a one go; here I face their Daily Pass system...
I will just leave Webtoon and not use the Daily Pass for this one sorry.
I didnt mind at all the fast Pass, because it's completely normal and it made sense but the Daily Pass just doesnt make any.

But why? They do unlock 1 episode every day, don't they? Or you just want binge read it in a few days?

They do, but the catch is that it's only free for 14 days, then it's locked again and you have to do this alllll over again.

This is my biggest issue with the Daily Pass. Not only you cannot binge read a long, finished series anymore, but also you cannot even attempt to collect anymore than 14 episodes thanks to this unnecessary policy : /

Honestly this is just encouraging piracy. I had a look at GOTW comment section and nobody is happy about this lol. Bad move.

I'm so shook with this!! What if they put Noblesse under this? With their more than 500 episodes!! :joy:

Thankfully I read it all and Im not a rereading person, but still...

Is this the major future of webcomics? Turning into a huge paywall? Did we enter the age of the gatekeepers? Will I need to hire a kpop band to help me to make weekly 100+ panels chapters? Ta-da!! Let's see in next episodes!!

What's with kpop band lol :joy:

The thing is the comics being rebooted into "daily pass" is old comics . Turning something free into paid is something not ok IMO. Even Google and Apple don't allow an app to be a paid app once it's free in their app store afaik.

It will be different story if they publish something new and put it behind daily pass. Maybe this is just "testing the water" process? I wonder...

they have so many people in the groups and they seem so clean and disciplined... I bet they would make great helpers! xD

yeah, it really doesnt make sense... unless they are really in need for dosh, what would be worrisome, somehow