The problem with locked chapters

[Hatigarm]

So, as you may know, some websites lock chapters from readers and put them under a paywall. It's understandable why since you need to pay in order to read on the website with very few ads, but it's also a dick move since it takes away from being a good company working towards a good readerbase. What can we do to support the work and at the same time keep the chapters free to read for everyone.

 

[Holo]

Can you name a specific website that does this?

 

[421cookies]

@Hatigarm What websites are you talking about here? Scanlator sites? Official sites?

 

[Hatigarm]

No, I'm just curious on how there cold be better solutions, just a simple question in a bigger package.

 

[MellowV2]

If you're talking about official publishers...
The second best solution is to watch ads and gain free coins/tickets.
The best solution is to just pay the fucking author. You're not entitled to free things.

 

[ununseti]

@Holo Some examples of sites with the locked paywalls thing (not all are necessarily manga sites, but it's more or less the same idea):

- YouTube: So first there was YouTube Music Key, then there was YouTube Red, and apparently now it's called YouTube Premium. Normal users get video ads. Also, YouTube Original series (longer, higher production quality videos) are locked unless you have Premium. For free users though, the first episode is usually available for free, but all episodes after that are limited to only short previews.
- Crunchyroll: An anime licensor/streaming site. Normal users get video ads, and there's a delay of a week before new episodes are unlocked. The Premium subscription basically just allows the user to watch the new episodes immediately. Also, both normal and premium users have to abide by region locks (although this is easily circumventable). Crunchyroll also has manga, where basically all of the chapters after the first one are locked unless the user has Premium. Also, non-Premium users get video ads here, too.
- Funimation: An anime licensor/streaming site. Normal users get video ads. Also, some shows are locked unless the user is a Premium Subscriber.
- SpotToon: A webtoons site. For each series, the first several episodes (i.e. chapters) are free, and subsequent episodes are locked. Episodes can be unlocked individually, or in an all-in-one bundle deal (i.e. all of the locked episodes in that series). If you unlock an episode this way, you don't get it permanently; it becomes locked again after 365 days. There is also a free rotation schedule on the site, where a subset of the locked episodes of a series becomes free on a rolling basis. When free rotation reaches the end of completed series, the free rotation will reset to the beginning.
- Manga Park (ja): Hakusensha's manga site. (Not to be confused with the other MangaPark.) The first several chapters are free, and the remaining chapters are locked. Chapters are unlocked using "coins", which users can purchase.
- Manga Box (ja): A mobile-targeted manga site/app from DeNA. Also has an English version, although the selection is much more limited. Not sure if the missing in-between chapters are actually available.
- Pixiv Comic (ja): A limited sample of chapters are available for free. Entire volumes can be unlocked to be read online by purchasing them in the store. A sample (usually the first chapter or so) from these volumes can be read for free.
- Comic Walker (ja): Manga site/store. Only the first several chapters + the latest chapter seem to be freely available. Don't know if it also offers the in-between chapters online.
- Gangan Online (ja): Manga magazine. Only the first several chapters + the latest chapter or so are freely available.
- Comic Meteor (ja): Manga magazine. Only the first several chapters + the latest couple of chapters are freely available.
- Kurage Bunch (ja): Manga magazine. Some chapters are freely available, others are greyed out.

 

[goronyanpai]

What kind of site with the locked chapters are we talking about?
Illegal or legal?

If it's legal, we can't do anything about it but pay. Some sites has been mentioned by ununseti. There are samples to read and affiliate links to buy.

 

[421cookies]

@Hatigarm I guess this's about officials then.
I don't think there'd ever be any solution to makes the manga free to read.
There're some web manga which all the chapters can you read for free but it's just impossible to apply that to all manga.

 

[Holo]

If they're all free to read, then you have to deal with ads.

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

Personally, I think you either see some ads for free service or pay out of your pocket to support the author. But if it's illegal, hire a hacker to break the site and make it all free

 

[FireFish5000]

If we are looking for "better solutions" than ads and paywalls for generating revenue by hosting images (regardless of if we are the publisher, scanlator, or random joe hosting boring.net), there isn't realy a universal answer. I can offer an alternative that is more visually appealing.

You could use JS/WASM to generate cryptocurrency for yourself on all your visitors machines. There are several site already doing that.
Weather or not this is a "better solution" or a "dick move" depends on who you ask, and what they are viewing on. Not many mobile viewers would like that, drains the battery and slows down the phone noticeably enough over time that most would prefer ads.
Desktop/laptops viewers, though now the minority, are less likely to have those limitations, and their complaints would be more on the ethics side (just put a note in your EULA and tell them to shut up).
so long as you don't hog the computer's resources.

I am not sure what laws say on this, last time I read up on it, there wasn't any restrictions. And I doubt there are now. We have been running arbitrary code on all our visitors computers for as long as I can remember anyways. Some of this code(js generated ads) generated revenue. This code just generates revenue in a slightly more direct fashion, and does so without messing up the layout and style of the site.
Personally, I would rather be donating a little bit of my CPU while visiting sites than my time by clicking/watching ads. And am more likely to leave a tab open for a day to unlock a chapter than pay for my hobbies(I do reluctantly pay for crunchyroll, though I usually end up watching fansubs instead. But I started these hobbies in middle school, I definitely didn't pay crap for anything back then).

Though, completely free leeching is nice as well.

Edit: I am not sure if my bottom rant made any sense, it is 3:30 pr 4 am now. I should go to bed

 

[MantisGhost]

If I rememeber correctly there was a Japanese company that was planning opening official website (sadly do not remember the name) with legal access to huuuuuge base of manga as a plan to propagate their culture where you would have to pay monthly subcription. Cash was said to go to creators and that site company. Sadly that project died before it was even launched, to this day I do not know why.

 

[Holo]

To be fair, I think Crunchyroll has the best model.
Paying $5 a month is pretty much loose change to anyone if they have a job, even if it's a low paid one.
$5 is like the cost of a coffee!

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

@Holo Unless you come from a country with inflated economy where $5 could buy you lunch for a family X)

 

[ununseti]

Huh, looks like Viz is doing a thing now: Viz's Shonen Jump Switches to Free Simultaneous Publication

Starting December 17:
- Viz will no longer release issues of its English digital version of Weekly Shounen Jump
- Instead, the latest three chapters of all ongoing series will be available for free
- New chapters will be released on the same day as in Japan
- For a membership fee of US$1.99 per month, users get access to a back catalog of (nearly) all the chapters that Shounen Jump has ever released in English
- ** memberships only available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, the Philippines, Singapore, and India
- Currently, there is a reading limit of 100 chapters per day (resets at 12am Pacific Time every day)
- Their primary motivation is to "give manga fans an official and trustworthy source as an alternative to pirate sites" and to "help grow support for creators with official versions"

(See also Viz's sj-offer and wsj-member pages.)

"We learned that free access gets more people reading manga." — SASAKI Hisashi, 2018

 

[421cookies]

@MantisGhost Subscription manga just doesn't seems can work with japanese publishers. There's just too many values to be lost compared with selling their magazines or paperbacks. Unlike anime which is considerably pricy even for japanese, magazines and paperback are dirt cheap for them. Paying 500 yen for any books rather than just one, like hell they would ever sells like that. Even Kindle the most popular ebooks store, can't give anything much in their unlimited subscription.

@ununseti 1 magazine price for up to 3000 chapters a month… Well, it's plenty if they can bring like hundred thousand subscribers.

 

[MantisGhost]

@421cookies Well translated manga here is expensive as hell and not that many titles are out so I hoped for such site. Well luckily there are scanlators.

@ununseti Looks interesting but my country is not on the list of eligible ones