Qidian's Paywall

actually, i have a friend who died not too long ago, at 26 years old, heart condition. just to remind you that other than us healthy people, a lot of readers are also people who spend a lot of time stuck in bed. some of them will die in 2 years.

and don't you dare argue that money shouldn't matter to them, since you have no idea how much it costs to go to stay in a hospital, and even if a lot is paid back later on, insurance loves using all possible means to weasel out of it, leaving a lot of people in such situations either broke, or not far from it. for them they really will have no choice but to give up on those stories, some of the few things they can still leisurely enjoy while stuck in a place waiting for the day they die.

think a bit before you speak, because though people like that are unlikely to ever speak up, since one of the most painfull things is pity, it is still not something you should just blatantly ignore.

 

You can.

Any reader, free or not, is a customer to a site.

Ad value is greatly influenced by unique view count. Every page view(non-bot) should be a net income to a site, and the more unique hits, the more valuable impressions and clicks through become.

Not only that those same customer form the base for those that are willing to pay more. Would any translation site survive if it switched wholly to paid customers only?

That's not to mention the attention they bring as well. Free users are the primary drivers of interest to the site. Even QI knows this, as the format of their CN sites exploits this same technique to drive views and encourage free users to pay in for later chapters.

You can't run a service like this and not view free users as customers.

 

I don't mind QI making money off their IP's BUT
if they want to monetize they need to do 2 things

1. release things by volume. cliffhangers are bullshit and good ones are hard to pull off. also given that a typical CN chapter is as short as the author's penis, there is little value to a per chapter.

2. up the quality, right now they are asking for money in fan-translation grade shit. make the thing worth something. add some pictures, spell check the motherfucker, figures of speech that makes sense.

 

It doesn't work like that. Let me paint another picture for you.
Free users are bait to catch fish : advertisers
Free users are the product
It is a fact

https://www.forbes.com/sites/market...g-for-it-you-become-the-product/#233bee835d6e

 

Ohh okay..

 

I think that someone that will die soon will have other things to worry about, than not being able to finish reading a novel they like.

They will probably just read another novel instead, since there are way too many novels on NU anyway.

Well, from what I have heard, some Qidian translations have pretty good quality though (I also heard others have terrible quality however... >.>), so... The customer has the right to choose what they will pay for, they should spend spirit stones only on novels with good quality IMO.

Pics and the like are a bad idea because the original didn't have pics, so it only makes sense the translation won't either.

 

you've obviously never had to deal with someone in such a situation... believe me, they worry about small things a lot more, since it's better than worrying about the inevitable... it's a bit sad, but it's a way to cope.

of course, there are stages to this, and it's a very complicated process, but it's still a major part of it. and yes, there are other novels. luckily. still not fun to have to give one up, just because "i won't have the time to read it, better give up and take another".

just another reminder to them, yknow.

 

I have a very close friend with cancer, they'll probably die by next year.

... Different people cope with different situations in different ways. *sighs*

 

Hmmmm... *goes to BB code editor*

*gasps* Each of those have 18 characters! You got 54 characters from 3 blobs! Such a cheat! You came here for the nuffies all along!!!! >.<

 

This further incentives that behavior, as now they stand to benefit even more from extra releases. It's a bonus on top of the flat rate they get, and they only get it for releasing early.

not how you're coming across

Which shows that SS is far worse for a non-premium user.

This is corporate doublespeak. QI will always run at a loss, they are essentially a shell company, and it's beneficial for them to operate at a loss.

And even if it wasn't for that, they haven't been running long enough to actually recoup their start up costs, which would be huge thanks to their rapid expansion. There hasn't been enough time for their userbase to properly expand, and they alienated a large portion of their potential userbase.

They'd likely have better luck (and alienate the existing base less) if they adopted a patreon lite approach, allowing users to subscribe to a novel in exchange for a set period of being ahead.

People would be more than willing to pay to be a set amount ahead, and it would avoid screwing the free readers, as well as reducing potential piracy.

This greatly depends on chapter length, and most patreon supports novels see a higher than 7 chapter/week release rates(7 tends to be the base rate before patreon), even when they are longer. Some also release all their bonus chapters at certain points and rebuild the advance each time.

Both platforms generally support a fast release pace, but patreon supports higher quality releases. Most novels with successful patreons are already translating as fast as quality allows for, and increases beyond that pretty much ensures shoddy work.

I acknowledged that in the example, but the point was that a loss was occurring. We're talking about a fairly extreme artificial inflation here, and while many might not finish in 2 years, we are talking about 2 extra, artificially added years. That's the core issue.

You're not entirely wrong here, however we can't actually say that either. While QI has brought in more translators, most if not all of these novels would have been picked up. And QI's existance also lead many translators to avoid picking up any QI properties for the better part of 2017, so it's next to impossible to actually make the comparison here.

You could also agrue that these novels would have been translated to a higher quality without QI involved, which while not directly time related

Faster than at a certain period of time, but slower than a certain period of time. Which again wouldn't be a problem if they didn't create a several hundred chapter disparity between paid and unpaid.

To be honest, I'm not super familar with the system either. That said, a system that introduces a need to exploit it is a bad one, and I'm inherently against any platform that requires me to grind for access to content like this.


But anywho, the main point is that they could implement a better system that's less impactful to the typical reader, and still make money.

 

I don't think so, QI acquiring the rights to a CN is the same as Kadokawa acquiring a WN.

QI is an international distributor and thus more access to more revenue
while Kadokawa is limited to Japan.

I expect more from QI and yet they are doing a slopier job than their Jap. counterpart

 

That doesn't make them not customers.

They are people that use your service, and you make revenue off that usage. That makes them a customer.

The only difference is that you make that revenue by selling them rather than selling to them, but either way, you get less revenue if you lose them.

More importantly, by losing sight of the fact that they are customers, you lose out on opportunities to make more money off them because you stop thinking about them organically.

QI has managed to secure some good translators, mostly ones that were already translating QI properties that had a huge following(this gave the TL a better negotiating position) as they could provide a guarantee of stability and legitimacy.

A large number however are little more than MTL'ers, and include some very shady groups. For example, QI employs Wuxiadream, a ground famous for poaching stories, terrible quality, and death threats.

 

A customer has to be involved in a transaction, there is no transaction here at all
You don't consider who gets a free sample a customer
They are potential customers but not yet

 

I use your site, you get to sell my data.
that is a transaction my friend
Edit:
also I think you are underestemating the value of user data.
here is a little video to show you some of it

 

Between me and the advertiser not you hence why you are the product

It is a different model than brick and mortar stores or regular e-commerce websites
You could say the novels are bait to catch fish(readers) to sell to advertisers

 

They are involved in a transaction.

They accept the usage terms of your site(implied), and have their usage data sold, as well as provide revenue to you through ad views and interactions.


If you are providing a service, then all users of that service are your customers regardless if they are paying you directly or not.

If you don't think of them that way, then you are doing yourself(and them) a disservice, and are missing out on revenue opportunities.

 

It's so noisy here!

Frankly I'm not personally surprised or bothered (mostly because I don't read that many translations in the first place. raws are better! XD).

In the end, companies are companies, and they're not fan translation groups. You can't expect companies to behave like fan translation groups, because they simply aren't -- and companies need to stay afloat, and they're do whatever it takes to stay afloat (whether that's paywalling chapters entirely or coming up with some kind of intriguing business model).

Unfortunately, it's not easy to build a company in a market where your main competitors are producing interchangeable goods essentially for free. Monetarily speaking, it's hard to compete. If all fan translators were paid at least the minimum hourly wage for the work they do, then it would at least been an even playing field for Qi.

I'm mostly just intrigued by whether Qi can manage to make a sustainable business model out of this, especially since they expanded so rapidly in the beginning and now they're in the red. They easily could have gone the Yen Press or Kadokawa direction and sold web novels akin to ebook with a complete paywall.

The difference here is that Yen Press/Kadokawa is much more selective in what projects they decide to translate. It feels like Qi has been too eager expanding, and even picked up translation staff in projects that aren't as popular and don't hold their own weight in the revenue they bring. I think that is really the main thing holding Qi down here financially.

The reality is that not all translation projects are profitable.

Only a small handful are, and you have to be smart with what you pick in order to keep your company outside of the red. I think if Qi just picked a few projects (e.g. RTW) and hadn't tried recruiting staff in the rest, they probably could be doing much better than they are now. If Qi continues to recruit paid translators in unprofitable projects, even with a total paywall, this model is unsustainable.

#offtopic but @lychee doesn't care

 

You sell the product not the customer.. hence you made my point. Gmail does not have customer service because the users of free gmail are not customers

 

that is the old model
now companies are using user data to train bots to increase user retention its creeepy AF TBH