News Naver has acquired Wattpad for over half a billion

Leading online novel platform Wattpad has been bought by Webtoon's parent company NAVER. It's now one of novel platforms that has fallen under big tech conglomerate's umbrella just like Webnovel.com.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/19/22239704/naver-buy-wattpad-600-million-aquisition

 

That's one real expensive anti-piracy measure.

 

Well, if anything, it's probably going to be anti-pirated-korean

 

....that's a huge cost for anti piracy..

 

I mean I don't have a huge issue with big tech. So far I don't have anything against tapread either. The problem arises when people fuck up and use their size to sweep it under the curtain and expect the consumers to just swallow it.

Webnovel is still the only substantial villain tled novels thus far. They are the yenpress of novels.

 

lmao not like it's going to stop piracy, everyone will just move to another site

 

It's not gonna win the war on piracy but it might encourage other companies like Naver to put small dents and give more money in the back for creators. Whether this will be just a flash in a pan or a pioneering step, time will tell.

I could sense the monopoly rant and Big Webtoons/Webnovels rant from a mile away.

 

This thread somehow become a topic about anti-piracy. Half a billion to curb piracy was a good joke but in reality, if they really wanted to fight piracy they'd better pour their big bucks somewhere else where piracy measure could be more meaningful.

Just like Facebook bought Instagram and Whatsapp, Naver bought Wattpad because it has an overwhelmingly big segment of overlapping readers with their subsidiary Webtoon. Company acquisition in the industry has been a common strategy for bigger industry conglomerate to secure their grip on the market share since forever.

 

I agree with your second paragraph. But more often than not, readers of webtoon and web novels don't care what happens to corporations who serve as platforms for the material they are consuming. Many are casual readers who are more than happy to consume illegal translations derived from pirating and won't be interested in this move at all.

This move may be of interest to translators or authors of said materials. Or people who post illegal translations in Wattpad. This seen as anti-piracy but also so minuscule because piracy is always booming. And of course, people who have an interest in corporate/publishing matters. If I would guess, this move can be seen as a threat and a path for monopoly in the industry and inability for those who pirate to do what they do. IIRC a translator said that what Naver earns peanuts for webtoons/web novels so I guess this move is just confirming that the company tries to expand its focus onw eb materials they publish and possibly put a one-stop portals like Google or Apple does.

 

It's not that I want to shoot down any discussions about anti-piracy, but this thread somehow looks like piracy is the reason why Naver bought Wattpad in the first place. Neither Naver, Webtoon, and Wattpad have said anything about piracy in their announcement. There should be more topics of interest that more context-relevant than piracy for this news.

 

I guess that means pirate aggregators would start adding wattpad novels to their website.