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:

  1. 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.

  2. 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!

  3. 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.

  • Moonrise2473@feddit.itOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    30
    ·
    1 month ago

    Yes, not only for this. I have two in my reading list that have the ending permanently locked after completion, the change is recent

    • DashboTreeFrog@discuss.online
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 month ago

      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.