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NEWS: Webtoon Service Ends Daily Pass Feature




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MrPuzzles



Joined: 27 Sep 2023
Posts: 202
PostPosted: Thu Jun 05, 2025 3:40 am Reply with quote
It's almost impressive how utterly parasitic and enshittified this "service" is.

At this point, I won't even be shocked if a couple of authors who have their own stuff on there come out and publicly advocate for alternative venues, because you just KNOW all this extra nickle-and-diming is decidedly NOT going to them.
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OtomeGay



Joined: 14 Oct 2021
Posts: 272
PostPosted: Thu Jun 05, 2025 5:37 am Reply with quote
Yeah, stuff like this is why I don't use Webtoon anymore. If an artist I'm interested in releases a story with them, I just hope it's one of the lucky ones that comes to physical print. If not, well then I guess I'm not reading it.

An especially frustrating move, considering how young Webtoon's audience is. I was there in its prime as a teen, and most readers (at least those who commented) were my age or younger. Leeching off of kids is not a good look.
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FanGamer24



Joined: 10 Apr 2024
Posts: 327
PostPosted: Thu Jun 05, 2025 8:37 am Reply with quote
I feel like people may be over reacting here. This is still more generous than competing services like tapas.

With daily pass your option was either wait until next day for more passes or spend coins. Now you can just watch an add instead of waiting until the next day.
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mdo7



Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 8241
Location: Katy, Texas, USA
PostPosted: Thu Jun 05, 2025 9:01 am Reply with quote
I found about this a few days ago when I wanted to resume reading one of the webtoons I was reading, this is just... Crying or Very sad Anime cry .
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Sevokevo Royuki



Joined: 15 Jul 2012
Posts: 341
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Thu Jun 05, 2025 9:04 am Reply with quote
I have no issues with this… it’s either A.) wait 24 hours to read the chapter for free or B.) go through a 1-2 minute ad and jump to the next chapter for free and get multiple chapters done per day faster than 1 chapter a day..

Also to the people complaining and saying that they are becoming parasitic and everything and saying they are going about no longer supporting the platform… be advised that there were previous articles that Webtoons has been steadily losing money annually and that if they don’t change something to where they can generate more revenue… then the company would ended up going bankrupt and services to the platform that supports and pays the authors and artists to make comics and work would stop meaning they would also no longer make money and have to move somewhere else…. And that would not be easy to do if these artists works are Originals as they are contracted with Webtoons to be exclusively on the platform which means they would not be able to move their works anywhere else for a unknown number of years… practically ruining those artists livelihoods as well…

With all this said… I have no issues with this and will continue to support the platform and read their works on the platform.
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whiskeyii



Joined: 29 May 2013
Posts: 2478
PostPosted: Thu Jun 05, 2025 9:24 am Reply with quote
Sevokevo Royuki wrote:
And that would not be easy to do if these artists works are Originals as they are contracted with Webtoons to be exclusively on the platform which means they would not be able to move their works anywhere else for a unknown number of years… practically ruining those artists livelihoods as well…

With all this said… I have no issues with this and will continue to support the platform and read their works on the platform.


Based on what said artists themselves have mentioned about the aforementioned contracts being both deeply unequal in terms of payment and ridiculously unrealistic in terms of deadlines, I think Webtoons could afford to focus more on paying its artists more than on squeezing money out of its members… >.>

EDIT: Not to mention the extra shady practice of not letting artists advertise their Patreons, which would, horror of horrors, actually LET readers support artists directly. Oh no, can’t have that nonsense. Rolling Eyes
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Sevokevo Royuki



Joined: 15 Jul 2012
Posts: 341
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Thu Jun 05, 2025 9:29 am Reply with quote
That last part with Patreon is a weird call because you can do that as a Canvas but not as a Original… when there are already ways around as they can share Discord server stuff and then turn around and the Patreon is there…
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MFrontier



Joined: 13 Apr 2014
Posts: 20109
PostPosted: Thu Jun 05, 2025 4:37 pm Reply with quote
Not sure if this will really interfere with my enjoyment of Webtoon.
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arms1122





PostPosted: Fri Jun 06, 2025 4:42 am Reply with quote
They probably gonna loose a lot readers here by removing the daily pass the fact that japan is the webtoon biggest market says a lot that they gonna struggle a lot in the future especially if their webtoons popularity decline in japan. YEAH not bad for creators but for readers yeah its kinda bad. Dont forget those ongoing protest against KAKAO.
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Sevokevo Royuki



Joined: 15 Jul 2012
Posts: 341
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Fri Jun 06, 2025 7:39 am Reply with quote
arms1122 wrote:
They probably gonna loose a lot readers here by removing the daily pass the fact that japan is the webtoon biggest market says a lot that they gonna struggle a lot in the future especially if their webtoons popularity decline in japan. YEAH not bad for creators but for readers yeah its kinda bad. Dont forget those ongoing protest against KAKAO.


Tell me why is this going to be bad where instead of waiting 24 hours just to read 1 episode a day.. it’s now changed to where you can read several of them per day by watching 1 minute ads per chapter?
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DameOfRecca



Joined: 26 May 2025
Posts: 9
PostPosted: Fri Jun 06, 2025 10:12 am Reply with quote
Suffering from success. You know they're doing well if they can choose to go to this format.
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Sevokevo Royuki



Joined: 15 Jul 2012
Posts: 341
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Fri Jun 06, 2025 10:16 am Reply with quote
DameOfRecca wrote:
Suffering from success. You know they're doing well if they can choose to go to this format.


Actually its the opposite... They have been steadily losing revenue year over year... so it sounds like they changing it to help make up and restore their revenue so they don't go under.
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