Why have tapastic changed so much?

[Limecolada]

So, I joined this site back in 2014 and then it was always full with free comics, many of them made by amateurs, but now the site is full with professional comics you have to pay to read... And it's really hard to find any comics that are made by amateurs, I really loved how small creators could share their work here in the past.. I'm kind of sad to see this kind of change honestly. What happened?

[pilot-obvious]

I suppose businesses have to make money, and premium comics are a way for Tapas to drive revenue.

But I actually thought Tapas was still mostly free to read comics, it's just that mostly premium content is promoted on the front page. I only consume free to read content made by fellow webcomic artists, and I haven't run out of things to read yet. I just sometimes have to do some digging to find some comics. When you search the Comics Section, you can switch the option to only see "Free to Read" materials and there are loads of really beautiful looking stories!

[Limecolada]

But they never promote small comics.. it's pretty bad, they could still make money from ads. It's pretty disrespectful to "silence" small creators by only promoting professional buyable content.

[SurvivALIST]

Capitalism is inevitable.

[doublemelon]

Another theory.

Most indie authors post both on Webtoon and Tapas, they're literally just mirroring each other. Webtoon being the bigger website, if Tapas promotes one indie comic here, people would probably just follow the comic on Webtoon instead of Tapas since the app is more user friendly.

So, apart from money, Tapas wants to make their front page look different from Webtoon by promoting their original, paid Chinese-translated comics. While Webtoon is obviously filled with the Korean-translated ones.

[Limecolada]

I used to think Tapas was pretty user friendly but not anymore I guess... So instead of focusing on user friendliness they instead changed it like this.. What a genius idea. Webtoon has been around since 2004 apparently and back when I joined Tapas it was around but many indie creators still stuck to tapas... Anyways, this site isn't my thing anymore if they can't give any space to hardworking indie creators.

[darthmongoose]

Tapas' CEO was pretty open and upfront about the reason in interviews. Tapas has recently been acquired by the Korean media corporation Kakao, but even before the acquisition, they had made a deal to translate and publish Kakao's portfolio of webcomics for English-speaking audiences as part of a push to build their brand's reach with the North American market, which has a growing appetite for webcomics and Korean media.

The staff have acknowledged that this is having a detrimental effect on discoverability and visibility for independent creators, and have said that changes are planned to address the issue. Hopefully the changes come soon and improve things for all of us.

[Limecolada]

s having a detrimental effect on discoverability and visibility for independent creators, and have said that changes are planned to address the issue. Hopefully the changes come soon and improve things for all of us.

Thanks for your clear answer..

[LettieK]

I'm relatively new to Tapas, and started out as a reader, so I'm not sure what it used to be like.

I will say the premium content, that was advertised, is what drew me to the site. Then I realized there was a whole slew of free content from smaller creators- and that I could be a creator too! I would never have known!
So, I guess I'm saying that the premium content might not be a terrible thing if it gets people on the site, where then they can discover the community of creators.

I DO think Tapas needs to feature the smaller creators better, and I hope it is something they incorporate soon.

[indagold]

Been here since 2015 and userbase became toxic too. Mods nuke most threads that talked about any social issues and everyone left for webtoons. All the small comics on here left too.
Nowadays most users brand other users as pure evil if they disagree with them. I got thrown onto that list apparently from complaining about yaoi stay mad. Tapas sucks. Sick and tired of my feed being full of comics I don't care about.

[WistyWrites]

Well I’m an amateur and I use Tapas. Like a lot of people are saying, it’s just that they aren’t promoting free to read comics/novels as much, though there are some.