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i haven't had much left in me anyways so all i plan to do is watch wait and maybe start mirroring on webtoons and tumblr. all this stuff makes my head spin and i think anyone who's ever felt salty about the site gets right to feel at least a little vindicated in their stances.
it's like other folks have said tapas has screwed up in the past and thus affected peoples trust so this is just another drop (if not more) in the metaphorical bucket
Mirroring is what everyone should always do all the time. Never limit your content or else no one will ever see it but that's a different discussion
It's important to remember that Tapas isn't in control anymore. It's Kakao now. Whatever they did or didn't does not matter anymore, they'll do as their new owners will say, up to and including shutting down the servers right tomorrow.
And I didn't hear many positive things about Korean business practices, to be honest.
Whenever a big corporation steps in there are always bound to be fundamental structures of how a site will be run. I think people are worried about the rights to their work being stolen by these companies swooping in and changing the terms of service etc. Also the blatant lack of communication and straight up telling people the deal won't go through even do it did. If they're willing to lie about acquired by Kakao then what would stop them lying about other things such as IP rights. Things like this are severely off-putting to me cause it shows the site is not being transparent to the community. I want to see the response from the company but in any case it makes me want to get off this site entirely.
I wanted to get into that Hammy tbh but I didn't want to awaken the dark side. It's so frustrating that they act like we're thick as pig shit sometimes. I want to see the response as well but I'm not holding my breath, I'm going to take Milquetoast non-commital response for 500.
In my experience, industry buys another industry for 2 reasons:
-To reach what was unreacheable for them, as in age, lenguague, geography. The new owner will not change much of everything because he likes what has been done by now, but of course now they will control the new direction, or...
-To stop a growing enemy to grow too much, and stop it, to later add it to their own resources. This could meant rebranding, redirecting, and closing. The last one its the most stupid, because the people will just migrate to another competitor, so I don't think that that will happen.
I mean, do that even before it gets acquired. Never get stuck on a plataform that's most definately not your friend. The only place you can trust to throw your whole archive at and never see it go outside of your control, is your own website.
Honestly, that statement on the thread was probably considered a good idea so we wouldn't take the word of a weird rumour site and now it's kind of a mistake, but hindsight is 20/20.
Honestly, this is my take on it. Kakao wants to export their comics and novels to the US / the west, so they bought out a company similar to theirs that currently has the biggest success. No brainer.
With all due respect to all creators (myself included), I don't think they give a damn about our free stories. It's nice to have them here to attract more readers, but that's it. The idea that they're secretly after the rights to however many thousand underperforming series is a bit ridiculous. Things will, most likely, continue as they are for free stories; and yes, that includes little to no visibility or opportunities besides staff picks. Not sure if it means we'll see an increase in imported series and a decrease in English originals, Premium and Originals-wise, however.
i'm well aware of the need to put your eggs in more than one basket, it's a word of advice that's been given here plenty of times. my only reason for not doing so before hand was because i was putting junk/practice work here so that once i had better quality content i could be spreading that around instead.
as for the acquisition in general all i feel at this point is indifferent. i do think tapas and the ceo could've been more transparent but what's done is done.
We do not know if this was an intentional lie. The CEO could had his belives that this was not gonna happen, but some circumstance made it so. And perhaps even he got surprised.
All the new redesigns and re-structuring we have withness only make Tapas more solid and I do not think that the new owner will buy this just to close it.
I bet that Tapas was gonna sell and made all this look good at the market but, the who that become the new owner might be the last one the CEO wanted???
We do not know.
I’m waiting for a response before I panic.
@ratique
No one's assuming the new owner is going to kill tapas lol. That would just be stupid.
And unless they're an insanely disorganised company or he is an incompetent CEO, they knew this was happening or at the very least were sure enough that his answer is at best evasive to a fault. They could've just said "We're exploring all options and this isn't off the table".
The CEO knows everything that's happening in their company, never assume they don't.
True, Ratique was just delivering the CEO's message. Never shoot the messenger, specially if they are fast and responsive.
hides in the corner, rocking back and forth, trying not to remember the NCSoft shutdown of City of Heroes in 2012
Well, I can do nothing but wait and watch, and mirror my posts as usual, so I won't start panicking yet.
Kakao/Daum has a presence here for quite a while, it's just nobody noticed it because people think webtoons, they think LINE Webtoons even though Kakaopage is Naver Webtoons biggest competitor in Korea. I mean how many people here know that most of translated webtoons here are from Kakaopage? I guess the clues were always there, the app icons for Tapas and Kakaopage did have very similar colors.
I guess Kakao bought Tapas because it was far less trouble trying to build a site from scratch and they already have foothold in the American market with Tapas. I wonder if Kakao will be buy Delitoon next seeing it's the first webtoon site in France and they a lot Kakaopage webtoons and The Beginning after the End.
lol bigger companies usually have more failure prone leaders just because one failure can easily be hidden within the vast depths of the giant company's maw
Yes Tapas is a small slice for them. So risk-taking is a possibility. Probably even more likely, because potentially more profitable, than playing it safe. We just have to hope it will fall somewhat in the middle.
If risk taking is a possibility maybe there is hope for genres outside of romance to finally get visibility
If you check Kakao original page, you'll see the most probable kind of content we'll have. My bet is we'll get muuuuuchh more of what is already around. It's what sells, guys, and kakao wants to get at least 3x more what they invested to buy Tapas.
Will be interesting to see how it shakes up. Most likely we'll get more of a push towards a Webtoon standard with the long scroll. The thing that I'd be most interested in seeing is if the expectation we see for Premium changes--like will it stay the same amount of work and pay? Will it be more? Will it be less? What's expected for Premium content is also the implied expectation that is set for everyone else. If the pay can get better, it could potentially open doors for people since ad revenue never cuts that mustard. If it just continues to push out content that was already published in other countries than make more original stuff...ehh...
As for IP rights I assume people debate those contracts on a case by case basis anyway--like you do not have to take the first contract you are given (and we've already had threads on that. Contracts can be debated for like months and months and months with publishing)
I expect a slow change, that's why I think we should focus on reflecting on each of our personal needs and potential dealbreakers, and keep checking and updating them in the future.
Telling us that there will be no changes now means nothing.
Well, if you're wondering what this might mean for some creators:
You might not read Japanese but you can recognize the author's name.
It means that Ratique had her comic translated and published in Piccoma, which is owned by Kakao's Japanese subsidiary.
...Which I hope OP means as "oh hey, look, it means good things! authors getting published overseas, yay!".
Congrats to Ratique, btw!
The new owner of Tapas is a korean company, so? I worked for koreans before in a car sale. They earned money, I earned money and I used soap and water.
Well...this is interesting. I am hoping that this has little impact to us creators, but considering that it is 100% acquired AND language was noncommittal to even dismissive from the CEO before...I admit to being a little wary.
I just left wattpad for the second time too...may need to have another place mirrored 
Aw shit, am I gonna get banned here too?
I'm supposed to upload my comics to pornhub or something now?
You can ask all your questions in the pinned thread where Ratique can see and address them all in one place!
I really hope the Tapas team is telling the truth because I don't want to go through the ache of what happened with SmackJeeves again. But just in case and I believe in healthy competition, I want to remind people of ComicFury11. It's a place where you can create your own personal webcomic site (unlike with old SJ you don't have to pay anything). There is also a minimal design for mobile scroll read for those who want that.
It's very indie. No comic is payed to be upfront of any other. The default front page just shows who has recently updated.
Edit: I also want to add that since CF does not have an app it does not have to bend down to Apple's censorship rules. So for anyone who needs a mirror for their art to be unaltered, please give it a look.
