Intro: Webtoon is an app/website where (mostly Korean) comics are released in short episodes. Those episodes aren’t released all at once but usually once a week, you have a free unlock a day and if you want you can have more by either watching an ad or by paying with coins, that are paid with real money. With the smallest purchase ($6), an episode can be unlocked with 3 coins (¢35) up to 7 (¢80). You can also skip the wait by paying with coins. I used it for years and I was ok by watching the ads at the end of each episode. It limited myself to one a day, otherwise I would scroll for hours. But, at the end of June 2024, they did the IPO, so that means ✨enshittification✨
So the guide on how to push away users to piracy:
-
Have a scary reminder at the beginning of every episode that says that piracy is illegal. (I can’t screenshot that without a rooted phone, it’s blocked). This helps the user to have a daily notification that yes, this content is also available somewhere else and you’re not bound to artificial limits.
-
Put the last three episodes of a series started 3-4 years ago in perpetual paywall. No more “just wait one week to get the new episode”. You want to see how that 200 episodes story that you’re reading almost every day for 3 years ends? LOL pay $6 to buy a coins package!
-
Now that the user is pissed that they can’t know how the story ends, they’ll just search it on the illegal sites, since over the past years they had to skip through 200 reminders that yes, this story is also available over there.
A note: I’m fine with paying, if it was known from the beginning. But bait&switch enrages me.
that’s so scummy. way to get users to shrug and watch it on a pirate site instead. if that was their goal, they’ve done well!
How much of the “coins” actually go to the artists and writers?
After googling and reading some articles, that doesn’t seem to be true. According to Webtoon, they make contracts with creators, which seems to be between 48.000 and 50.000 dollars a year on average. For example, the contract would state that the creator is to deliver 50 episodes per year, with a 1000 bucks per episode. If the series incurs any losses and makes, for example, only 45.000 in revenue, then the creator still gets paid the full 50.000. That’s including fast pass. So, in this example, Webtoon would make no money on the series in that year.
Again, 50k is only an example, it depends on the contract. The numbers in other articles are all over the place, I’ve seen reports of as low as 38k.
This doesn’t include “international (non-local) paid content revenue, advertising revenue, or merchandising revenue.” Which means that creators can make more than their contract states, even if the episodes themselves don’t meet the contractual revenue.
Webtoon also has an ad revenue sharing program for creators that hit a view minimum requirements. Through this program, creators get 50% of all ads displayed on their series.
Please keep in mind that this information may not be 100% accurate, but it is the most reliable info I could find in a few minutes, since it’s mostly from Webtoon’s own homepage and a few third party sites.
In any way, it’s better than not getting paid for your work at all.
it’s better than i expected, I assumed it was a sweatshop situation reading comments from smaller authors like the one of “emmy the robot” that had to stop because they didn’t share the ad revenue anymore
The fast pass has been a thing for years, but are you saying the last three chapters are permanently locked? That’s terrible.
Yes, not only for this. I have two in my reading list that have the ending permanently locked after completion, the change is recent
I feel like they’ve had this for a while but maybe the specific situation is different. I might also be getting confused with Tapas.
Years ago I was reading “Extreme Dog Owner” while it was being released and was blocked out of latest episodes. So when the artist stopped the series it took a while before I realized the last few episodes would never get unlocked for me. Sounds like the same situation? Minus the huge piracy warnings.
Luckily I had a friend who bought it already then just read on their device.
Let me guess, the coins can only be bought in bundles. The bundles are deliberately made so that no matter how you spend the coins, you’ll always have 1 or 2 coins left. Which makes you encouraged to buy another bundle to make all your moneys worth.
Of course, the minimum package is 52 coins which isn’t divisible by 3, 5 or 7 (pricing is variable according to the series)
