I'm constantly seeing complaints on the forums and the comments section's of premium comics about how unfair and even exploitative the Pay-To-Read function is on Tapas Original content.
I also read, various comments defending the creators, explaining that it is a necessary step to allow creators the means to continue producing content.
As both a creator and an avid reader of webcomics I can see the merits to both claims. I am creating this thread, not to debate the validity of these perspectives, but to offer a simple solution:
A subscription based service.
Whilst browsing for new Webcomics, I stumbled across this hosting site, called Toomics, which you can access here: https://toomics.com/en/
Toomics employs a subscription based service for it's premium content. It also gives the readers a generous amount of free content before hiding the rest behind a paywall. (averaging at around 15 pages.)
This direction seems like a given, with more and more platforms employing this type of system, Youtube, Amazon Prime, etc.
This also allows for the creators to benefit, whilst not exploiting the users unfairly with expensive paywalls.
But won't this mean less money goes to the creators?
Initially, it could, this system is not without it's flaws, and most of the revenue would have to be divided between all the creators, instead of having direct royalties, per episode.
But eventually this would balance itself out as more of the community embraces the premium system and contributes to the website.
Additionally the issues of supporting the premium creators directly can always be circumvented with third party sites like Patreon and Kofi as well as tapas' support feature.
Lastly this system would eventually, in the long run give Tapas more revenue, allowing the company to benefit and have more resources to update and better their site, more often.
Again, I would like to state that I really appreciate websites that promote creator content, and only want to see it do well, this thread was not intended as an attack on their site.
I'm interested in knowing what you have to say, if you have any ideas on how this system could be improved.