Though I have no doubt that Tapas wants the best for its community, it's obvious that there's a lot of upper management/external say in how the site operates nowadays. Seeing as how LINE Webtoons is one of the leading websites in webcomic marketing at the moment, it's no surprise that potential investors and their own current investors coming into the new fiscal year (when investments for the year are renewed) would want to see Tapas try and compete with them in a way that might directly imply copying them entirely. Tapas is a small company still, especially compared to LINE, so finding investors to keep them afloat is key, especially if they want to continue expanding. And when you're that small of a company, not only are there potentially less investors to choose from who would be fine with putting their money into a small and indie market like webcomics, it also means you might end up having to just do "what's popular" instead of standing on your own merit - because doing the latter could mean investors not wanting to take a risk with you. If you can prove you're not a risk - by, say, mimicking other successful websites - you're more likely to get seed money.
It's admittedly the same reasons why SmackJeeves suddenly turned into a LINE Webtoons clone even after being one of the longest running webcomic platforms over the last two decades. Before its update, SJ was a relic of the early 2000's BBCode message board days, and while I can't say it couldn't use a few quality of life tweaks here and there, the new update was so off the mark that they shot themselves in the foot. It's obvious they got bought out or sold themselves to investors who wanted to see the same thing that even Tapastic is going through right now - a complete brand shift to hop on the LINE Webtoons bandwagon in the hopes of cashing in.
And you might say hey, why not just invest in LINE if you want LINE so bad? Because LINE and their webcomic platform is Korea (?) based. Tapas has its roots in the Korean market, but it's quickly becoming an America-recognized platform with their primary office now in the US. So that's the American market that they're trying to nab before LINE can swoop in and snatch up the entirety of it.
As much as I wish this could be the case, investors have already put their money into Tapas expecting them to make these changes to keep up with the market. Money's been sunk into it. At this point, the devs have very little say, and that includes Michael. Which is why we're seeing less communication between the staff and their audience as well - because they're obviously under legal oath to manage what level of transparency they have. Consider this a double answer to both your post as well as OBC's:
Now I'm not saying this is right. In my earlier post, I mentioned that this year, Tapas really should set their sights on getting a proper PR person to maintain their public image. Because right now, the biggest issue with the platform is their complete lack of transparency - the only time they're even meeting the bare minimum of communication is after they've fucked up and need to do damage control. A PR person and re-prioritizing what sort of platform they want to be will keep them from getting to that point where there even needs to be damage control, but they're never going to reach that point if they keep doing the same shit they're doing.
I think the best we can hope for is not a complete reversion to the old look, but perhaps steps that can be made to help it function and behave more like the old version without it being sunk cost. Because as I've said already, the biggest problem with this new update is the fact that it didn't seem to introduce new features, like companies would typically do this time of year when they're hunting for new investors and fighting to keep their current ones - it seemed to take away more than it presented, which is the complete opposite of what these updates are supposed to be for. As I've said, Tapas is a small company in a risky market, so they need to do more than most mainstream companies would have to do to keep and/or gain investors. Take Facebook, for example - they've grown into a multi-billion dollar company and a household name. If Facebook fucks up, we roll our eyes, but do we stop using Facebook? No, because Facebook is so ingrained into our culture now that it would take Mark Zuckerberg literally becoming Hitler to stop using it, and even then they would still be able to stay afloat.
In Tapas' case, this raises an important question - why is it that when they updated, they not only did the bare minimum of progressive innovation, but brought even less to the table than when they started? It's all obviously an effort to try and mimic what's successful but that's not what's going to set them apart and make them the better decision for investing in the long run. Short term, it works - long term, they're possibly doing themselves more harm than good.
Yup, and I don't think anyone should ever bar people from leaving the site either. As I've said it many times already, we as creators have the right to decide if we want to host our work here, to put our time and energy and labor into this platform. If we're not getting what we want out of it, whether its traffic or monetization or just plain enjoyment, then we have the right as creators to pull out at our own time.
In fact, that right to opt out from Tapas' platform is exactly why the Right of First Refusal TOS update was so controversial - because it planted the idea in people's heads that if they wanted to leave, they'd need Tapas' permission. This wasn't the case of course, ROFR is actually a very good tool for creators to have when contracting with websites like Tapas so that they can leverage more money to keep their comic on Tapas' platform (in the event that other platforms like LINE try to persuade a creator over to their platform). But it's a good tool for contracts. When it was put into the TOS, it created this blanket application to all users that implied their rights as creators were being taken away. And that was one of the first biggest turning points for the website when people would actually make a stand and leave - I know Anna Landin was one of many artists who left the platform as a result of that mess. And even though ROFR hasn't affected individual, non-contracted artists since then, the damage was already done and the message had been made perfectly clear to those who interpreted it as such - Tapas sometimes makes decisions without any communication that makes it so that we can't trust them as a company.
People have called me out before for calling that line of thinking - that Tapas doesn't actually care if you leave or that you shouldn't care about leaving them - 'toxic' or 'silly' but would you disagree with someone wanting to break up with their boyfriend just because they're unhappy? You shouldn't have to wait for shit to keep getting worse and worse to leave. If you just don't feel like your place is here, that's your right as a creator and user. I'm not encouraging people to leave, I'm just reminding them that they don't need to be clinging to some imaginary relationship with a website that may or may not be giving them anything in return.
Just because we aren't paid on contract by the website doesn't mean we can't expect better. In fact, as creators who provide their work en masse, hundreds upon hundreds of episodes spanning genres and years of work, all for free, we have just as much, if not more leverage to demand a better platform than those who are paid to be here. Because we're not paid to be here - and yet many of us are still here providing our work and in turn, our labor, not to mention free advertising for the website every time we share our comic to direct readers from external platforms. Every time you post your link to reddit, or to Facebook, or Instagram, etc. you're doing free advertising for Tapas, and in return, they allow us to host on our platform - but even that's barely worth it at this point with such a poorly developed backend that's massively affecting our frontend. Besides, Tapastic isn't the only webcomic hosting platform. So a basic "we provide you the platform" just isn't great leverage to debate as to whether or not we have the right to demand better. There are others out there that will bring you, at the very least, more fulfillment to post to if Tapas isn't giving you that anymore. The decision about whether or not to leave or weather the storm though? That's yours. Don't let anyone convince you it's not.
I tried to figure out what comic you draw and couldn't find it, but if you do manage a popular/mainstream comic as you say (and I'm not accusing you of lying, I just can't find your work xD) then I'm really humbled to see this point of view. It's not one of arrogance or privilege, it's one of genuine empathy and concern.
Like people think every time I or anyone else here call out the Premium creators, it's hate at them. And while they've definitely been through their fair share of crap and are justified in feeling outcast simply due to their success, we all need to recognize it's not hate for the creators or their work, it's just rejection of a system that's obviously biased and doesn't benefit anyone who's working just as hard - if not harder - to bring their free to read content to this platform with barely anything in return.
And yet I keep seeing Premium creators stepping forward with things like "well stop hating on us, Tapas is a business, they need to promote their Premiums to make money!!" Like okay. But - and this is a VERY hot take so I apologize if this is over the line - leave it to the privileged ones who are benefiting from the company's decisions to obviously be the first to stand up for them. Of course Premium creators are going to defend the system and how it's built - it's because they're not dealing with the actual drawbacks of using the site when you're not being paid to be there. It's sort of hard to take these opinions as genuine or valid when they're making even just a semblance of a living off their work and are constantly being carried on Tapas' shoulders above the rest. Yes, many Premium or otherwise 'mainstream' creators started as free to read creators and worked hard to get there - but now as a result they're in a biased position as a result of Tapas' own system that benefits them at every turn, whether it's through monetization or just constant promotion and traffic. Especially with the current lack of the 24/7 timer system. You can't look at a building that's caught fire and say "the building's on fire but why are you complaining? Just get out of there or stop bellyaching," when you've already been rescued by the first responders and those still trapped inside lack the ability to escape on their own.
I'm not denying that Tapas needs to make money. But they're forgetting the thousands of comics and creators that got them to this point, that filled their library with so many popular works (some that mirrored here - ex. GamerCAT brought them HEAPS of traffic back in 2012/13, hell, it's literally how I found Tapastic.)
So for any Premium creators or otherwise mainstream artists, please don't feel like we're calling you out for being successful. There are plenty of successful comic artists out there who we love dearly and would never imagine being assholes to (Katie Tiedrich and Samantha Whitten are both angels and I will protect them at all costs >:OOO). Some of us are just poorly projecting our feelings onto you when really, we should be pointing fingers at Tapas for creating this obviously biased system that favors the mainstream and disadvantages those who could just as well be the next 'mainstream', if they were just given the chance.
I'm only calling you out recognizing the obvious advantages you have and why it doesn't look good when you say "it's not that bad" or we're "overreacting" because you're just not existing in the same context of the website as we are anymore. And that's not your fault - it's on Tapas, who have created this ecosystem where if you're not mainstream either due to being popular once 4 years ago, having your comics meme'd on Twitter with every new episode, or following the status quo by hopping on whatever genre and/or storytelling conventions everyone else is doing, you're going to intentionally be pushed down to the bottom of the bin. And then they blame it on the algorithm. You created the algorithm, Tapas. You can't express empathy to those being beat down by it if you don't actually do what you can to fix it.
Tapas just needs to quit it with the plausible deniability and pretending that they can't fix this problem that they've intentionally created over the last 4+ years. They gotta take more responsibility than that.
In the meantime, though, all we can do is make our own decisions about our futures here, and figure out if a future here even exists. I'm not gonna chastise anyone for their decision no matter what you do, because at the end of the day, it's your decision, and you're the only one who's going to live by it. It's not going to affect me in any way, and you don't need to feel guilty about it affecting Tapas - because they've proven time and time again that they barely bat an eye at whether or not their decisions will affect us.
