I'm with you there, Bobby. For a majority of my time on Tapas (even before it changed its name to that), I've mainly plugged my works through other active sources (My deviantart, emails, word of mouth, posting on these forums, and light advertising via comic networks). The results, especially for my novels were a lot more views than what I would ever get if I simply stuck to just Tapas.
Sadly, views don't always translate to likes and they especially don't translate to subscribers. Since novels have become my main interest on this website, it seems like I've thrown my works and my audience into this rut where only novel-enjoyers come for a chapter or two, then leave. I blame that personally on Tapas' neglect of the NOVEL feature and how they shift the blame to "They can't update the novels. Its a small team" or some silliness like that. Uhh... Webtoon never accepted PNGs beforehand either, and they could recently update. Why can't Tapas, even after the buyout?
If Tapas updated their core features like allowing novelists (or comic artists) to separate our works into VOLUMES (because other sites can let you do that), that would be a huge boost. They should also update their character count because 15,000 is too small, especially for folks who have huge chapters to invest into.
It stinks because there's a lot it can do AND can learn from if it wants to stay a competitor to places like Webtoon. But from a business perspective, they're falling behind. This isn't VALVE or Webnovel or ComicFury, this is Tapas(tic). And so far, I'm feeling the "tic" the longer I stay here on the site.