It would be nice if the CEO got in front of this with a "State of the Union" speech, but based on what others are saying about what's going on in private circles (we're not following the Twitter storm because we have more important things to do with our time) it's almost at the point there is nothing that Tapas can do to offer an olive branch and mend fences.
It's almost as if some creators want to attack Tapas and are looking for any reason to. Since the ToS is now fixed they're trying to find anything else to attack with, including bringing up Comic Panda and TokyoPop and whatever else fits their narrative.
Do creators want Tapas to fail? It certainly seems like it.
Tapas has a dedicated staffer who works hard at trying to grow the site day in and day out. We sent a bunch of personalized emails to a list of news curators that the staff member gave us, trying to get the word out about the tipping feature. None of those news curators even sent a "we're not interested" response. And now some of them are going double barreled shotgun on Tapas. What the heck?!
Only negative news sells these days? The tipping feature was created to try to help creators get ahead financially and no one seemed to care in the industry. Now Tapas makes a gaff and the barbarians are at the gates.
If Tapas fails, then what? LINE Webtoons? A website solely dependent upon the goodwill of a larger company that could one day decide to cut the umbilical cord? Then what? Sorry to say it but Webtoons is an Inkblazers time bomb. One day some day the books have to balance. Not saying its going to happen any time soon, but the math does not make sense.
So then what, Hiveworks? Which is gated... so most of us can forget about that avenue.
It's not like there are a ton of good options out there for creators who don't want the responsibility of running their own dedicated website. Tapas provides a large reader base, gives 85% of tips, 70% of ad revenue, provides a mobile reading experience, and takes care of the back end. Name something better.
Not saying that we liked what was in the ToS. Quite the opposite. But to err is human. For those who want to choose to believe that Tapas is trying to do good, their hearts were in the right place, they just didn't execute it properly.
But it seems like a lot of creators want to think the exact opposite, that Tapas is out to get them. We could understand someone being on the site for a long time, bringing in lots of new readers, but never getting featured as having some pent up resentment. But one of the creators who insta-nuked their series, they got major play by staff, including Staff Pick, a Spotlight, and possibly even a Daily Snack (think so but can't remember exactly). Their subs count went O.O in no time. What the heck? Staff fell all over this creator and then the creator doesn't even give staff 24 hours? Talk about a total lack of respect.
Tapas made a mistake. Creators make a mistake. Where's the mutual understanding?
We aren't thrilled 'bout the whole Tapastic to Tapas change and how the homepage went novel heavy, but the company has to make money. Not many seem to get that point. Tapas isn't here to serve at our pleasure. It has to be a mutually beneficial relationship. Tapas makes a mistake and out come the pitchforks? Geeze. "What have you done for me lately" to the extreme.
Yes, Tapas should have come forward and said, "in two weeks we are going to make changes to the ToS" and offer a public comment period rather than just pop this on everyone. But on the other hand, creators need to get a grip and act like professionals, not short fused arsonists.
In the end all this purposefully perpetuated drama does is poison the reader well and punishes all webcomics.