Webtoon Pledge Program is Ending - New stuff on the way?

[ihaveatoaster]

(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

[SleepingPoppy]

Maybe they could implement something similar to tapas

I believe thats what's happening? Webtoons just wants to send the ad rev through your patreon. So creators must have a patreon but users don't have to, as far as the webtoons stuff goes.

[lunchtiiime12]

At least they took it back after feedback.

[joe_galindez]

I feel like the next one is only a matter of time. Patreon may not be publicly-traded (at the moment) but it's still corporate-owned and corporations are all about deflecting responsibility. I try to have as little to do with them as reasonably possible.

[LordVincent]

.....the main goal of a company is to earn money off of their ideas, to finance future developments, make profit and pay the people hired under it (as a responsible company would). Not deflecting responsibility. Why would Patreon intentionally go out of their way to create another drama making people quit their product?? It makes no sense.

The problem with the last one wasn't the idea itself, but the fact that they were about to launch it without checking with their users if it was a wanted change first. Big changes require audience input or you run the risk of screwing yourself and the people who depend on your product being reputable.

Most companies don't piss their customer base off on purpose. Rarely when customers get pissed does it ACTUALLY have to do with bad intentions from the company's end. Oftentimes they have an idea and don't realize the negatives until it's too late and people are already angry about it and tweeting their heads off.

[joannekwan]

[joe_galindez]

I could be wrong. Maybe Patreon will never have an issue ever again. But generally speaking the corporate structure leaves businesses open to all sorts of shenanigans. In any other structure the ability to make decisions always comes with proper liability. But with corporations, the ones who shape company culture are shielded from the law. The worst that could happen is they lose their investment. They're never called to account for environment damage or loss of life.

[DiegoPalacios]

While i agree some companies may engate in unethical behavior, they need to get a benefit from screwing up people. Otherwise it is just a loss of reputation and investors. I am not defending Patreon or atacking it. My point is that if they are going to hurt others with their practices it can probably be reckless behavior too. To see if it was recklessness or malice it would be better to search for evidence.

[LordVincent]

Moving back to the actual topic at hand...

I believe thats what's happening? Webtoons just wants to send the ad rev through your patreon. So creators must have a patreon but users don't have to, as far as the webtoons stuff goes.

Yes, this would be accurate. This monetization method has nothing to do with making people pay you on patreon; the "support this creator on patreon" button has already been in place for a long time.

The reason webtoon mentions patreon in their post is because they are already partnered up with patreon and will transfer the ad rev money (so earned from ad providers, not reader's pockets) to us creators via patreon. I'm assuming it's more convenient for them that way however I am wondering if patreon will take out a fee on the ad rev a bit like it does with pledges. If so, I imagine it would be better for creators if they offered alternative payout methods such as paypal? Then again right now webtoon compensates for patreon fees. If they keep doing that in the ad rev program then I won't mind.

[Merle]

Thanks Vincent, the talk about stockholders and evil cooperations was getting confusing.
So, back on Topic; I look forward a lot to the new changes as well. I honestly hope they will offer an alternative to Patreon, otherwise I might have to create one for this purpose.
I´m also interested in how those ads are gonna look like - at the bottom of the episodes? or at the start? What will the reader reaction be.
Can´t wait till August to find out

[Hodge]

I think it'll probably just look like what the featured comics have as ads, so doubt readers will take notice.

[LordVincent]

I honestly hope they will offer an alternative to Patreon, otherwise I might have to create one for this purpose.

I hope so too, not everyone has a patreon actually, for various reasons.

For me personally, if they compensate for fees, patreon would be way more convenient. But I want there to be other opportunities for those who need them I feel like the people it would affect first would be small creators who don't have patreons. Then again depending on the requirements, those people might already be weeded out...

[LordVincent]

@Merle You know what I would really like though is if we could have the cool stuff that they have on the Korean platform where they (I heard at least) have shop buttons! I would have to make some new merch if they do but it's about time anyway It would also help bring back the power of merch in western fandoms!

[Merle]

They might just implement it after some kind of backlash of creators who don´t use Patreon?

I would absolutely love that! I´ve been playing around with the idea to create merch for a while, not that I would actually sell much at the moment, but it sounds like a lot of fun and propably a good practice.

Would be great to have those buttons!!

[LordVincent]

They might just implement it after some kind of backlash of creators who don´t use Patreon?

It's possible they could add it later. Sometimes stuff is improved with time if requested enough. I know in the pledge program we used to get a pledge from a user called webtoon, but now it's integrated immediately into patreon so we don't get the annoying unpledge/pledge notifications everytime webtoon changes the amount they pay you.

If you really want to avoid making a patreon for now maybe send them a message about it?

[Merle]

Hm, I might consider it, since I still have a lot of open questions about Patreon +my job + residing in the USA. For now, I will propably just wait tough. I can´t be sure if I will even qualify for the program (it would be nice, since I get around 5k views per update; that could translate into money), and it´s not until August.
But If I do; I´ll be sure to share whatever comes out of it with the forum...

[darthkrievos]

Lol, it's interesting how everyone is taking this quite calmly while i'm hear scratching my head trying to figure out how to deal with this. If it's going to be $1 CPM that means we'll be earning about 80~40 percent less of what we're making with the current pledge program, well i do hope at the very least they would lower the barrier to entry so that more people can benefit from this -_-

Also i guess on the plus side if there's no limit on how much money you can make then if you have an extremely high number of view you might end up earning more compared to the current pledge system.

Probably also got to keep reminding users to disable adbock on Webtoons >.>

[bear1]

Personally speaking, I assume they want to use Patreon in order to encourage more creators to use it. In exchange Patreon earns money with the fees coming from the WT Ad-revenue (and potential other supporters which might come along to pledge to the creator). It kinda would be a win-win for every party involved.
That’s at least my take of it so far.

Talking as someone who’s rather fond of Patreon (even with the fee controversy), and as someone who never earned a dime through WT, I wouldn’t mind if they charge me as creator for the Patreon-fee.
Earning money with Webcomics feels like scraping together nickels and dimes and I don’t think we have too many opportunities to be picky in how we earn those.
I’d rather make an extra $20 a month and pay $5 of it in fees than not making anything extra.
In that matter I’m fine with fees. (they will come with PayPal too, so Patreon feels more convenient too me)

The shop button sounds pretty cool too. Sad to say that I don’t have the time for selling stuff nor am I too successful with merch via. Red bubble. But it would be neat to get easy acces to merch from other creators. If that’s a future venue I would more than welcom it

[scythe]

Most of the reading audience are young and have little money to spread around, which is why only the most popular comics get anything decent through Patreon donations.

And most advertisers will see continuously diminishing returns with banner adds because most readers are tweens in school who aren't on the webtoons app to buy your damn financial services, Alec Baldwin.

So who's got incentive to spend and is more likely to have a few bucks handy if the returns are right?

Creators, that's who. And there are tens of thousands of them on Webtoons, who I'm sure many of which would be willing to set a reasonable monthly budget if that meant more eyeballs on their own work.

So what if they allowed creators to buy adspace on other creator's webtoons? Like, instead of waiting and praying to get hand-picked for a spotlight that may never be coming, you could just buy it.

Yes, the larger webtoons would have creators vying for a spot at the end of their updates, for which they could charge more, but not everyone would be able to afford that, so people will then turn to the mid and smaller size webtoons, which would offer cheaper adspace.

Considering that when people are on the webtoons site and app they're there to read and discover webtoons, I think these ads would get a pretty insane click through rate, and if the system were calibrated well and easy for creators to take part in, it could work well for everyone.

Am I talking crazy here, or is this a good idea?

[joe_galindez]

While we're discussing alternatives I wanted to follow up on Steemit, the Reddit clone where creators and curators get paid in cryptocurrency. Anyone got any experience with that?

I also want to ask about JSEcoin, the cryptocurrency you mine using your readers' devices.